Heartthrobs Don’t Date Wallflowers (Texting the Boyband)

Chapter 18

eighteen

As it turned out, deciding what to wear to the concert of a boy you thought you might be in love with was harder than I ever could have imagined.

“Just wear the short skirt,” Poppy said for the third time. She was practically buried under the pile of rejected clothes I’d been throwing on the bed. “It looks good on you.”

“But is it good enough?” I asked. I pulled the skirt on again over my dark tights and spun around in front of the mirror. It was a little jean skirt that Poppy thought it looked great, but I wasn’t so convinced.

Poppy rolled her eyes and groaned, falling back on my bed, practically using two of my sweaters as a pillow. “You’re being ridiculous. It’s just a stupid concert. The skirt looks cute.”

I rubbed my clammy palms down my legs and grimaced. “Okay, but does it actually look cute? Or are you just saying it looks cute because you think nobody will see us? ”

She rolled her eyes again. Honestly it was her top talent, along with sighing. Little sisters were great for that.

“Look,” she said. She got to her feet and started digging through my closet, throwing clothes over her shoulder. I saw my favorite tank top, which I deemed too cold to wear, fly across the room, quickly followed by the floral dress that was too dressed up for a concert. Exactly where was the fine line between cute and crazy when dressing up for a crush? I didn’t know.

I fell into Poppy’s abandoned spot on the bed as I waited, my leg jiggling nervously as I waited. She’d decided to full on assault my wardrobe at this point. I may as well redo my closet clean out at this point with how many clothes were strewn over my floor, my desk chair and my bed.

I was startled when Poppy threw a shirt at me. Not to. At me. Like it landed on my face then fell to my feet. It reminded me the day Zach gave me his clothes and my heart clenched.

“You wear that shirt,” she said. I saw her grabbing something else and I opened my hands in time for her next throw. For goodness sake. “And these boots. Then the jean skirt and a leather jacket to pull it all together.” Her hands landed on her hips as she smiled at me triumphantly. I just stared helplessly at the clothes in my hands—a simple white crop top and black boots—and wondered again if it was good enough. Would anything be good enough for this moment? “It will look amazing, I promise.”

I collected up the stuff she’d thrown to me—a simple white crop top and black ankle boots—and wondered if she was right. Poppy was always my go-to person for fashion advice since anything she wore looked fresh out of a magazine. She always gave off the vibes of look good, feel good . I just didn’t know if looking good was enough for me tonight. This was an important day. More important than she knew, because I hadn’t told her everything about it. It was my own fault that she didn’t know about Zach, but I knew if I told her about him, she would freak out about how I was going to be marrying a T5 boy or something. And I couldn’t deal with her freaking out, because I was too busy freaking out myself.

“Fine,” I said finally, mostly because I glanced at the clock and realized if I did another round of sifting through my closet, there was no chance we’d get there on time and Poppy would kill me if we were late.

I pulled on the clothes while she headed downstairs to order an Uber for us, but I hesitated as I reached for the jacket Poppy had suggested. She was right that it would look perfect, but it wasn’t right. I shuffled through my array of clothes all over my room in a panic. It had to be here somewhere–and it had to be that one sweater.

“Ivy!” Poppy called from downstairs and I was about ready to give up when I throw a pair of jeans to the floor from my bed and I spotted it.

Zip-up sweater. Black with a faded logo on the front. Soft and smelling of him.

Zach’s sweater.

The one I still hadn’t given back to him.

And then, just for good measure, I went back to the notebook I’d been using earlier, ripped out the final page I’d written on, and stuck it in my pocket.

I scrambled into the Uber with a bouncing Poppy and this time, it was my turn to roll my eyes when she practically squealed with glee.

Poppy couldn’t sit still for the whole ride to the concert, meanwhile I was trying not to hyperventilate. I kept opening my messages, wanting to say something to Not Zesty, but then not knowing what I could possibly say.

In the end, I opened the group chat instead, wishing I could just ask them who they were—and if I was right about who he was.

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

Members: Ni-Ni, Bay, Sharky, Tis Moi Luca, Eggo, Not Zesty, I cheer you cheer, the fangirl, Ivy

Ni-Ni

Is now a bad time to say that my stomach hurts?

Bay

That’s what you get for binging on chocolate an hour before the show

Sharky

Dude. We have a rule.

Ni-Ni

No

YOU have a rule

That rule doesn’t apply to me

Eggo

I guess now would be the wrong time to say good luck tonight huh?

Tis Moi Luca

PLEASE we don’t need luck

Not Zesty

Speak for yourself

I’m frEAKING OUT

Just seeing his name on the screen made me freeze. I wondered what he was talking about. Freaking out about the concert? That seemed strange given how often performed. Unless he was nervous about… My mind flashed to his last note to me before he left.

Hopefully I don’t disappoint.

Could he mean…

No. There was no way in the world that Zach Miles was nervous about me being in the audience. Listen to me, I sounded like a delusional fan who was convinced she’d marry a boyband member.

Then again, I spent over an hour to pick out an outfit that I thought would impress said boyband member, so maybe I was officially one of those delusional fans.

I hated that I couldn’t message in the chat. All I wanted to do was make him feel better. But I obviously couldn’t start messaging out of the blue now—I didn’t even if any of them had realized I was there yet. So I did the next best thing by pulling up my direct texts with him.

Ivy

Hope you have a great night 3

There. It was subtle enough that he didn’t know that I’d seen his message. It was just a nice message from one to another.

As we pulled up to the stadium, it was already buzzing with energy, and I could barely hear myself think over the screams of the crowd. It was intense—everywhere I looked, there were people laughing, shouting, and snapping selfies in their Take Five merch. Girls had signs with neon letters, or blown up faces of the band members on sticks and others were already holding out their phones, ready to capture every second. It was like stepping into another world—one made of flashing lights, pounding bass, and glittery fans who seemed to have their lives way more together than I did. My heart was racing as I followed Poppy through the throng of people, my ticket clutched so tightly in my hand that the edges were starting to crumple.

Poppy, on the other hand, was living her best life, practically skipping ahead of me, her dress swooshing around her. She seemed completely in her element as she weaved us through the crowd to find our seats.

“This way!” She yelled over the sound of the crowd, keeping her hand gripping mine tightly. The second we got to our seats, she pulled out her phone and tilted it toward me. “Okay, smile! This is your moment!”

I gave her my best grin, but it felt awkward, like my face didn’t quite know what to do. The nerves were starting to creep up again. The lights were still on, but any minute now, they would dim for the show to start, and I wasn’t sure I was ready. Not for all of this. Not with everything that had happened with Zach.

Poppy laughed at me but didn’t make me try to redo the photo, thank goodness. And then, the lights dimmed, and the crowd went absolutely wild. The stage lit up, and the first beats of the opening song pounded through the speakers, making the ground shake beneath my feet. It was like the whole stadium was moving with the music, and I couldn’t help but get caught up in it, at least a little.

And then he appeared.

Well, the whole band appeared, but my eyes were entirely locked on the figure on the far right.

Dressed in leather. Hair perfectly tousled. Mic in hand.

Zach.

He looked like he’d just walked out of a music video. He had this casual, effortless vibe that made him stand out even more than the bright lights.

He was in his element. And I could feel a true genuine smile creep over my face. If Poppy had asked for a picture now, I’d look less like a dead fish than earlier, that’s for sure. Zach hadn’t even sang a word yet and I was beaming. For him.

I watched as he sang into the mic and listened to the way his harmonies blended with his bandmates. It was mesmerizing. It made my stomach do a weird flip, like when a roller coaster suddenly takes a nose dive. I tried my best to focus on the music, on the show, on anything that wasn’t the butterflies swarming in my stomach, but my eyes kept drifting back to him.

Zach Miles. The boy next door. The boy I’d been texting without knowing who he was.

Was he going to see me? Could he even notice I was here, out of all these thousands of people? I mean, I was probably just another face in the sea of screaming girls. But still... what if he did?

What if he didn’t?

And it was ridiculous. Because up there, he wasn’t just Zach, the boy next door. He was Zach, the singer, the rockstar, someone larger than life under the spotlight. Untouchable. While I was just… me, lost somewhere in the crowd, wearing his sweater like it meant something.

To my right, Poppy was full-on dancing, waving her phone in the air with no care in the world and I wish I had her confidence, rather than the nervousness eating me up inside. Still I couldn’t help but laugh despite myself. This was her night, her thing, and I wasn’t going to ruin it with my own weird feelings. So I took a deep breath and tried to relax, even as my heart kept pulling me back to his side of the stage, wondering when—no, if —Zach would look over and see me.

And what I’d do if he did.

The crowd hung on his every word, every movement, like they were spellbound. I was too—but for different reasons.

Then the song faded, the lights dimmed, and a hush fell over the stadium. It felt as if we could hear a pin drop as every audience member waited with bated breath in anticipation for what might come next.. The roaring screams turned into a dull murmur. The stage was dark. And all we could do was wait as the air shifted in a way that felt like something important was about to happen.

Then a spotlight turned on and Zach stepped forward, toward the mic, and my stomach lurched. He was looking out into the crowd now, his expression softer than it had been all night.

Something told me that this wasn’t part of the performance.

“I just want to say,” Zach began, his voice smooth, deep, and just loud enough to be heard above the crowd’s screaming that erupted the moment the spotlight turned on. “There’s someone here tonight who’s really special to me.”

The crowd erupted in shouts and cheers. How many girls thought it might be them? How many girls wished for it? Zach glanced out into the sea of faces, his eyes searching, and for a split second, I swore he was looking right at me.

I froze in my seat. Wait. Was he?—?

My breath caught in my throat.

“I can’t say who,” he added. His fingers nervously gripped the handle of the mic, but my eyes were fixated on his smile. The way it grew as he spoke,, “but I think she knows. But uh, in case she doesn’t… If you knew me, you’d know, I’m terrified of making the first move.”

The crowd went wild at the words. Why, I wasn’t sure. But I knew why my heart was thumping, why I was waiting for him to notice me, why the world was spinning around me.

If you knew me, you’d know…

Zach was the boy I’d been texting all week.

The same boy who held signs up in his window, who drove around aimlessly to find me in the rain, whose sweater I was wearing now.

Zach was Not Zesty—and he was telling the whole world, in the hopes of finding me.

“So, Princess…” He had to pause and let the cheering fall away before he could finish his sentence. It was probably for the best, because I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to hear him over the sound of my heartbeat. “If you’re in the crowd tonight… find me. I hate making the first move, but I’m making it now for you.”

The crowd went wild again, but everything felt far away—the noise, the lights, the hundreds of people around me. All I could feel was the rush of blood in my ears, the tightening of my grip on the fabric of my sweater. His sweater.

I blinked, trying to process what was happening. Was this real? Was he for real? My hands shook, my mind raced, and it was like the ground beneath me was shifting. He’d just put it all out there—right in front of thousands of people.

For me.

Suddenly, the stadium felt too big, too loud, too much. The only thing that could make sense of it was Zach.

Zach, standing there under the stage lights, calling out to me—he was afraid, but he was still doing it anyway. He was doing it for me .

I needed to find him