Heartthrobs Don’t Date Wallflowers (Texting the Boyband)

Chapter 24

twenty-four

Waking up for school the next morning was like waking up into a new life. Nothing was different in any true sense of the word—I got dressed for school, called Poppy while I ate breakfast, then went outside to meet Zach for him to drive me to school.

But it felt different. Like until now, my whole world had been off-kilter and now that it had righted itself, I couldn’t believe how long I’d been living like that.

“Are you sure about this?” He asked when I got in the car. My only answer was to lean across the centre console and kiss him, threading my hands through his soft hair. I knew that wasn’t what he was asking me about, but right now, I wanted to stay in this little bubble of just the two of us.

He didn’t ask again when I pulled back. He just started driving and let me blast Take Five songs. He even smiled at me as I tried to sing along to them as best as I could, although not knowing most of the lyrics made that a little bit difficult. I wasn’t sure if it was a requirement of being one of their girlfriends that I had to know all of their songs. I’d have to ask Megan.

As we stopped at a traffic light, a car pulled up beside on Zach’s side and suddenly, I felt the weight of five teen girls watching us. Their windows were all rolled down, so I could see every single one of them watching us—even the one who really should have had her eyes on the road, since, you know, she was driving a vehicle.

Zach gave them a small wave. Not a single one of them waved back. None of them even smiled or broke into whispers like what usually happened when people saw the boys. No, they just kept staring and staring and staring. Even when the light turned green and we pulled away, they continued to sit there.

“So, I think that might be an omen for how our day’s gonna go,” I said. We’d agreed to finally go public with our relationship, or as public as we were both willing. Neither of us really wanted to talk about it heavily online, but we’d agreed not to hide it either. After that concert, all his fans had been desperately trying to figure out who his “secret girlfriend” was and we knew it was only a matter of time before they figured it out, so it was better that we got ahead of it instead.

“Don’t worry,” Zach said. “You get used to it.”

It was the same thing Megan had told me about getting used to how the fans reacted to the boyband being at school. I hadn’t believed her then, and I didn’t believe him now. No, none of this was something I was going to get used to. Because I didn’t sign up to become famous. I didn’t go on a reality show with the hopes of becoming a big singer. I didn’t sign up for any of this. All I did was text a wrong number and fall in love with the boy next door. If he had been anyone else, this would be a normal high school relationship that nobody cared about. Instead, I’d happened to fall for one of the most famous boys in the world and now, I would never be anonymous again.

A month ago, the thought of everyone watching me would have been enough to make me break up with him and run for the hills. But the idea of leaving Zach, the idea of not being the one to bring those smiles to his face or sitting in the car with him like this every day, made my heart ache. The idea of it hurt so much more than the idea of the world watching us.

Zach had put himself out there by announcing to everyone that he was looking for me at that concert. Couldn’t I do the same for him?

Zach pulled into a parking spot up near the front of the school. Already, I could feel eyes on us.

“You ready for this?” Zach asked.

Was I ready? Would I ever be ready? I wasn’t sure. He must have seen the panic on my face on my face, because he slipped his hand into mine, so warm and reassuring. “We don’t have to. I guess it might be a little late for us to try to take all this back now, but I can drive off and drop you off at some random street corner, and you can walk up to school and pretend that nobody ever saw this.”

When I looked around, multiple people were staring and phones were up. Everyone had been waiting to see who Zach Miles was in love with since the concert and now they were getting the first look. Before I knew it, I would be plastered online whether I wanted to or not.

“You shouldn’t have confessed at the concert,” I said, giving him a small grin. “It meant that everyone knows.”

“Good,” he said. He brushed a hand along my face. “I want everyone to know.”

And then he kissed me again. And even though I knew that there were so many people around us, even though I knew people were getting photos of this, even though I knew the whole world was about to know that I was with Zach Miles, I leaned into it anyway. I let him kiss me and I let myself imagine that he wasn’t a major celebrity, that he wasn’t Zach Miles of Take Five. For a moment, I let myself pretend that he was just Zach, the boy I texted instead of my ex, the boy whose window faced mine, the boy who—against all odds—I had fallen in love with.

“Come on,” he said as he pulled away. “We might as well give them a show.”

He got out of the car, and before I had time to react, he was around on my side and opening the door for me. He held a hand out for me, and I stared at it for a long moment. This was it. This was the true commitment. Seeing me through the windshield was nothing compared to seeing me walk into the school with him, hand in hand. It felt like I was entering a movie, like I was in somebody else’s life, like at any moment, I was going to blink and wake up on my first day of school and find out that none of this had happened.

I slipped my hand into his, got out of the car, and when everyone stared, I reminded myself: he didn’t like making the first move, but he made it for me.