Heartthrobs Don’t Date Wallflowers (Texting the Boyband)

Chapter 15

fifteen

Zach’s house was strangely… normal.

I wasn’t sure what I was expecting a boyband’s house to look like, but I hadn’t thought it would be just like any other family home. He left me standing in the living room, doing my best not to make too big of a puddle since I was dripping like I’d just been fished out of a lake, so I took the chance to look around a little. Blankets discarded on couches, a magazine left open on the table, a tipped over box of pop tarts on the counter—it was clear that teenagers lived here, but if I didn’t know who they were, I never would have guessed they were famous.

I was so distracted by it that I didn’t hear Zach come back in, so I completely missed it when he threw a balled-up towel at me. Well, I missed it until it smacked me in the face.

He very politely did not comment on it.

“Here,” he said, holding out a zip-up sweater and folded up sweatpants toward me. I appreciated that he didn’t chuck these at my face too. “You should get out of those soaked clothes.”

I hugged the towel to my chest, my brain immediately short-circuiting. “What?”

“They’re soaked,” he said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “You’ll get sick if you stay in them.”

I stared at the sweater, my brain scrambling for a response. “But... I can’t just... I mean, I don’t want to?—”

“It’s just a sweater, Ivy,” he said, cutting me off. “It’s not a big deal.”

I swallowed, glancing down at my soaked clothes again. He wasn’t wrong. My skirt was sticking to my legs in the most uncomfortable way possible, and I couldn’t remember the last time I felt this cold.

But still. They were Zach’s clothes.

If I put them up on eBay, I could make thousands.

Not that I would ever do that. It was just the principle of the thing.

He nodded toward the hall. “Bathroom’s over there if you want to change.”

I hesitated for another second, then mumbled a quick “thanks” and grabbed the clothes, making my way down the hallway. I peeled off my wet shirt and sighed happily as I wrapped myself in the warmth of Zach’s oversized sweater. It was soft, worn-in, and smelled like him.

When exactly I’d learned Zach’s scent, I wasn’t sure.

I stared at the grey sweatpants for longer than I probably should have, though, as I decided if I should change into them. I mean, it was one thing to borrow a sweatshirt, but sweatpants? That felt… weirdly intimate. But he’d offered them up without me asking, so he clearly didn’t mind, and really, what was the alternative? Staying in my dripping wet skirt?

Screw it.

I pulled the sweatpants on. Then rolled up the bottom of them three times over so they weren’t so long that I was tripping on them. When I looked in the mirror, I realized I’d gone from looking like a drowned rat to looking like a kid dressed up in someone else’s clothes. Both the sweater and pants were way too oversized and practically hung off my body.

But at least I was warm. And, honestly, even though I looked a little ridiculous, it made my heart flutter to know that I was wearing Zach Miles’ clothes.

When I stepped back into the living room, Zach was sitting on the couch, flipping through his phone. He glanced up when he saw me, his expression still unreadable, though his eyes lingered on me a little longer than usual.

I tugged the sleeves of the sweater over my hands and wondered what exactly the protocol was now. Obviously, I’d have to be here for a little bit. Zach answered my unasked question by scooting over on the couch, even though there had already been space, making it painfully obvious that I was supposed to sit down.

“The clothes look good on you,” he said softly as I sat. I pretended I didn’t hear him because I wasn’t sure what I could say to that.

Zach shifted on the couch, his hand resting on the back, not too far from where I sat. I fiddled with the hem of the sweater, my heart thudding so loud in my chest that I wouldn’t be surprised if he could hear it.

My phone buzzed in my lap, lighting up with a new message. I glanced down at the screen, seeing a text from the group chat. Nothing important, from what I could tell. Then again, I never knew what they were talking about.

Though, I had spent most of this afternoon trying to think of ways I could bring the group chat up to Jude, now that I knew he was in it, but I’d come up blank. I couldn’t very well just go “hey, Megan accidentally added me to this group chat that I know you’re in and I need you to tell me the identities of every single person in it.”

“Who’s that?” Zach asked, his voice casual as he leaned a little closer, peeking over.

“Uh…” I hesitated, shifting the phone in my hand. “Just a group chat. My friend accidentally added me to it, and I’ve just… never left.”

It sounded so stupid when I said it out loud and I let my words awkwardly trail off. Zach didn’t say anything, but his eyes remained focused on the screen, where new messages were coming in every few seconds.

“Maybe you should send something.”

“Oh no, I can’t. It’s too late now.” I felt my cheeks heat up at the thought. “If I said something after all this time, it would be so weird.”

Zach chuckled, looking away, but there was something in his expression—like he knew something I didn’t. “Yeah, better to just watch from the sidelines, I guess.”

I nodded, though his words echoed in my head a little too long. It was almost like he was teasing me, but I couldn’t figure out why.

I glanced outside and realized with a frown that at some point since I’d gotten here, someone had pulled into my driveway. It was hard to see from this angle, but it looked like my Mom’s car.

“So, uh…” I awkwardly shifted like I was going to get up but didn’t stand yet. “I guess I should get going.”

“Need me to walk you home?”

I was so taken aback by the words that I wasn’t even sure if he was joking or not, since the walk was less than a minute. To stay on the safe side, I cracked a smile and said, “Somehow, I think I can manage.”

As I headed toward the door, Zach grabbed my jacket from where it had been hanging to dry and handed it to me. Our fingers brushed, and I felt a little jolt, though I wasn’t sure if it was from the touch or just the fact that he was still standing so close.

“Goodnight, Ivy,” he said softly, opening the door for me.

I didn’t realize until I got home that I was still wearing his clothes—and I wasn’t sure if I was ever planning on giving them back.

After the day I had, all I wanted to do was collapse in bed. So when I saw a call coming through from Not Zesty as I was lying awake just after midnight, I almost declined it. But then I imagined having to go a night without talking to him and I decided it didn’t matter what mood I was in, I wanted to talk to him.

“What are you doing right now?” I asked him.

“I just finished working out,” he said.

“Because nothing says ‘midnight’ like cardio and protein shakes.” I shifted on my bed to pull the comforter over me.

“It’s practically a lifestyle,” he replied. “Plus, Luca brought me a coffee tonight and swore it was decaf. I’m starting to think he’s a liar.”

“You should be less trusting. Or train yourself to not be affected by caffeine.”

“I don’t know if that’s possible.”

“The trusting part? It’s very easy.”

“Says you, Ms. I-have-a-hit-list-and-you’re-on-it.”

“Oh, thanks for reminding me! I’ve gotten sloppy with keeping up with it. I better book in your execution soon.”

“Please make it before next Wednesday, I have a test I really don’t want to study for.”

“And you think being killed will be enough of an excuse to get out of it?” I asked teasingly. “Because I don’t know about your parents, but I think mine would still expect my ghost to show up.”

“You make a good point,” he said. “But I don’t live with my parents, so I bet I could get away without them even knowing.”

I tilted my head. That was new information. He’d mentioned before that his sister went to boarding school, but he didn’t, so that explanation was out. Maybe it was something to do with why he lived with Luca. Since he mentioned going to school with his brothers, I’d assumed Luca moved in with his family, but maybe it was the other around. For some reason, Not Zesty moved in with Luca instead.

“If you knew me,” I said slowly, trying to keep it light, “you’d know I’m dying to know the deal with your whole living situation.”

The pause was long and I thought I might have gone a step too far. But then he laughed softly and said, “Well, if you knew me, you’d know I’m not great at explaining complicated things.”

“Come on,” I whispered. “Try?”

He sighed. “Okay. Well… About a year and a half ago, I moved out of my parents house for this… thing.”

“A thing?” I asked. “Gee, yeah, that clears it up.”

He laughed again. “Sorry. It’s hard to explain. It’s like… like I went to boarding school or camp or something. But only for a few weeks. And then that thing flipped my life upside down. I never moved home after that. Now, I live with four of my best friends, and our guardian. When I told you about my brothers the other day, I was actually talking about my friends. I just didn’t want to have to explain it all.”

I was still struggling to follow along with what he was talking about. What could have happened that changed his life so much that he had to move away from his family?

“Flipped upside down in a… good way?”

He let out a heavy breath. “A very good way. Crazy. But good.”

“And what about your sister?” I asked. I grabbed the penguin squishmallow that was laying on the bed beside me and hugged it to my chest. Poppy had given it to me for Christmas last year and every time I missed her, I liked to hug it. Even mentioning his sister was enough to make my heart ache for her a little. She was only a couple hours’ drive away but it might as well have been across an ocean. At least she was coming home for a visit this weekend.

“She’s my actual sister,” he confirmed. “And she is actually at boarding school. In case you were doubting that part of the story too.”

I grinned to myself. “I wasn’t but I appreciate the confirmation. And here I thought you might secretly be a spy or something, with all these mysterious family details.”

“If you knew me, you’d know I’m not nearly that interesting.”

“Well, that’s disappointing,” I teased, shifting on my bed. “If you knew me, you’d know I could totally handle it.”

“Yeah well, if you knew me, you’d know…” His voice went soft and he cleared his throat. “You’d know I’m in love with you.”

My brain short-circuited .

My heart stopped beating.

My face froze.

Every logical part of my brain screamed that I needed to respond, like, now. I should probably say something sweet, or romantic, or at least remotely coherent. Something that would tell him he wasn’t alone in this—that maybe I was feeling the same way. But instead? My mouth might as well have been glued shut.

Just when I thought that I could maybe force some sort of noise, he said, “You don’t have to respond now. Actually, maybe it’s better if you don’t. But I needed you to know.”

Cue the weird, half-choked sound that came out of me—somewhere between a gasp and a hiccup—that he somehow took as a goodbye.

“Goodnight, princess,” he murmured, and before I could blink, the line went dead.

I let the phone drop into my lap and just stared at it, brain still buffering. Did that just happen? Did I somehow imagine it all? It felt like I sat there for hours, replaying it all, waiting for my brain to catch up to my heart.

He loved me.

And I totally blew it.