Page 24 of Celebrities Don't Date Bookworms

Together?

Suspicious

Sharky

How isit suspicious?

Eggo

I’m…

not sure

I just wanted to say it

See ya later

Tis Moi, Luca

BYE

Eggo

BYE

It was too bad that we weren’t sharing our real identities. If they were actually like this in real life, I probably would like to be friends with them, but then, I wasn’t anything like “eggo” in real life. If they saw who I was in real life, I doubt they’d like me at all.

four

“Megan,can you set the table, please?” Mom stuck her head out of the kitchen and looked at me with raised eyes when I opened my mouth to ask if I could just finish my chapter. I swore she was psychic—she always knew exactly what I was going to say before I could even think it all the way through. “Now.”

I put my book down on the side table and unfurled myself from the strange position I’d been sitting in on the armchair for the past couple of hours. My legs felt a little wobbly under me as I walked into the kitchen, a result of having them pulled up on the chair whenever I was reading. Any physical discomfort was worth it, though, because I’d gotten through more than half the book since coming home from school.

“Is Dylan home?” I asked as I pulled plates out of the cupboard. My thirteen-year-old brother was the exact opposite of me in so many ways. While I looked like my mom with my fair skin and hair, Dylan took after our dad with dark brown hair and eyes; where Ihated any and all forms of physical activity, Dylan was on three different sports teams, and where I was quiet and introverted, he was the extroverted class clown, always hanging out with friends or going on dates. It felt like a miracle every time he was home for dinner.

“No, he has hockey until eight o’clock,” Mom said. She stirred some sort of red sauce in the pan on the stove, and my stomach grumbled. I hadn’t realized until then how hungry I was. When I read, it was like the world disappeared from around me, and nothing other than the story existed.

I grabbed three plates and sets of cutlery and moved over to the table to set it. Even with my back to her, I could feel my mom’s eyes on me. I guess I inherited her psychic powers because I knew immediately that she was going to get on my case about going out more.

“So,” Mom said, “have you met any cute boys at school?”

I sighed deeply but held back a groan. Every couple of weeks, my mom would express her concern about the fact that I never went out. She seemed to think it was weird that I didn’t have any friends other than Sloane and that I didn’t like talking to boys. I think she was worried that I was going to become some weird loner in the future.

“There aren’t cute boys at Summerfield,” I replied, probably a little more snippily than was strictly necessary.

“Sure there is, sweetie,” Mom said. She passed behind me and put down the pot of pasta on the table.As she turned to get the sauce as well, her eyes landed on the collar of my shirt. I looked down as well, and my lip curled in disgust as I took in the large coffee stain that was now on it. It had dried on the way home, and I’d been so distracted by the texts from the boys that I hadn’t changed earlier, and then I’d completely forgotten about it. “What happened?”

“Oh, I…” I waved my hand in the air as if dismissing her worries. “It’s stupid. I went to Starbucks after school, and when I took the lid off my coffee…” I trailed off before I mentioned anything about the boy I’d met. Hudson Shaw. I couldn’t exactly tell my mom that a member of her favorite boy band had spilled coffee all over me. I had no clue how she would react tothat. But she was looking at me expectantly, so I just said, “I tripped on my shoelace, and spilled it all over myself.”

“Oh.” Mom frowned. “We should probably get you some more white shirts. All of yours are disgusting.”

She wasn’t technically wrong about that, but I didn’t appreciate her saying it so bluntly. What kind of teenage girl liked to be told her wardrobe was disgusting, right? But I also hated to argue, so I just said, “Okay.”

“We’ll go this weekend,” Mom said.

“Can’t we just order some online?” I asked. I hated shopping in general, but I especially hated it with my mother. I knew we wouldn’t just be shopping for new school shirts, we would also end up shopping for clothes for every possible eventknown to man, and that was always a pain. She would make me try on shirt after shirt, finding a reason to critique every single one of them, so I only ended up with a couple of pieces by the end of it. Then she would take me into a dress shop “just for fun”and make me try on dresses for formal events, even though I only went to those once in a blue moon.

“No, we’ll go to the mall,” Mom said. She bumped her hip against mine, and I grimaced. “Girl’s trip.”

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