Heartthrobs Don’t Date Wallflowers (Texting the Boyband)

Chapter 23

twenty-three

The fall from the window wasn’t long but it was bad enough that I scraped my shoulder on the garage roof. Aside from that I was fine. Who was less fine, though, was the girl in the room, screaming about how some crazed fan was trying to climb through Zach’s window. She sounded horrified.

Part of me didn’t want to climb back in now, but I couldn’t just leave and not explain what happened here. My shoulder screamed in protest as I sat up and I suddenly got light-headed, so I took a second to sit there for a second before I finally got to my feet and started to climb back into the window. The girl screamed again, high-pitched and terrified.

“I’m not a random fan,” I said loudly, hoping she could hear me over the screaming. She didn’t look really convinced, but then again, I probably wouldn’t be convinced either if some random girl was climbing in my brother’s window .

Just as my feet landed on the floor, Zach ran into the room. I wasn’t sure where the heck he’d been that I managed to get back into the room before him.

“Elodie, it’s okay!” He said. She backed up into him, still staring at me with wide eyes. At least she’d stopped screaming now.

“But she?—”

“Zach, did you figure it out?” A voice called down the hall.

Zach cursed under his breath then yelled back, “Yeah, it’s fine! She just saw a spider.”

Elodie looked deeply offended at that and slapped his arm hard. Zach rubbed at it like she’d actually hurt him but he didn’t take it back. I guess the boys didn’t believe his excuse anyway, though, because a moment later, Hudson appeared in the doorway. I’d only seen him a couple of times around school, usually holding hands with Megan and looking at her like she’d hung the moon. Because of the angle of the door, I was the first thing he saw when he walked in and he froze in place, just staring at me.

“I’m not a crazy fan,” I told him, because I thought it was important that was cleared up immediately.

“Okay,” Hudson said, not necessarily sounding like he believed me, but he didn’t call security either, so that was a still a win. “But why…”

Zach sighed and crossed the room to stand next to me. Just as he did, the other boys came streaming in. Jude, still laughing his butt off, was pushing Finn and Neil inside, both of whom seemed like they had no idea what was going on.

“Sorry,” Jude said between pelts of laughter. “But I think this will be easier if you explain to everyone at once.”

“What’s going on?” Finn asked. “I thought you’d be hanging out with Elodie, not… Whatever this is.”

Elodie must have been the surprise Jude was talking about earlier. Zach had told me she went to boarding school, so her visiting would a surprise for him. A surprise visit I was totally ruining by showing up here.

“Zach, who is this?” Elodie asked. She didn’t sound quite as scared as before—but then again, anything would seem calm compared to the screaming—but she didn’t seem happy about any of this either.

Zach wrapped his arm around me, around my waist, pulled me close, and said, “Ivy’s my girlfriend.”

You could hear a pin drop in that room. Everyone stared at us with gaping mouths. I wasn’t sure where the real shock came in. That Zach had a girlfriend? Couldn’t be it, because they all knew. They’d all been there at that concert. But I guess it was that I was here, that they were seeing it happen before their eyes.

“This wasn’t the first impression I wanted to make,” I said, awkwardly pulling on my sleeves. “I mean, I know I’ve met most of you but meeting you as Zach’s girlfriend is different and I?—”

“You’re the girl who hurt her hand in the locker,” Neil said. “Right? The one he drove home.”

“How do you know about that?” Zach asked.

“Oh please!” Jude said. “You think you can drive around with a girl without us knowing about it? Our fans are practically professional stalkers.”

I cringed at the thought of that. I’d always been a private and shy person, and the idea of the whole world knowing me and watching my relationship made me want to break out in hives. And it was only going to get worse from here. At some point, we would have to tell the world about us and then everyone would know me. Chances were, everyone would hate me for being with him.

Wasn’t that a delightful thought?

“And that means you’re the girl he was talking about at the concert,” Hudson said.

“And the one who punched him in the face,” Jude added cheerfully. Elodie looked slightly horrified but the boys all laughed, while I flushed red.

“Right on both accounts,” I admitted. “But I didn’t punch him! I just…” I trailed off as I realized that the truth wasn’t much better. But everyone was staring at me, so I mumbled, “I just knee’d him.”

That was enough to send Jude keeling over in laughter again. To my surprise, even Elodie laughed along a little—the first time she’d smiled since she got here.

“Let’s go downstairs,” Zach said. “I’m sure there are plenty of other embarrassing stories we can share.”

“Maybe there are some we can keep to ourselves,” I suggested, trying to tell him with my eyes that if he told anyone about the dancing incident, I would be breaking up with him on the spot.

Then I would get back together with him immediately, because hello , I wasn’t letting Zach Miles be the one who got away. But he didn’t need to know that part.