Page 30 of Celebrities Don't Date Bookworms

“Hey!”

“You’re welcome to try to prove me wrong.” I was prying so much that it was actually embarrassing, but I was desperate to know more. The boys had been so secretive about their lives in the group chat, and I was curious by nature. I always wanted to know everything I could about anyone I met.

Bay huffed a laugh. “All right, let me try again. Like I said, I’m your average teenager, but up until last year, I was even more average than most. But then… something happened that changed my life a bit. A lot. And even though it was a good thing, it was overwhelming, and it seemed like nothing was ever going to slow down or ever go back to normal again. So, my parents and… other adults in my life thought it might be a good idea for me to come live here for a while to give my life some more stability while I finished high school.”

I was desperate to know what that ‘something’ he referenced was, but I knew he probably omitted it from the story for a reason, and I wasn’t going to pry. Satisfying my curiosity wasn’t worth pushing his boundaries.

“Why Bibridge, though?” I asked. “Do you know people from here or something?”

“Kind of,” Bay said. “I mean, it’s—yet again—complicated. I don’t actually live withmy family, I live with the other guys in the group chat. The thing that happened affected all of us, so this was our solution. One of the guys has some family here, so they’re acting as our guardians to make sure we don’t die and all that.”

“I can’t imagine living with anyone other than my family,” I said. As much as my parents and brother got on my nerves sometimes, I couldn’t imagine moving away from them. Even the thought of going to college in a couple of years filled me with dread. “Do you miss them?”

“A little,” Bay said. “I just moved here recently, but I’ve been living away from them on-and-off for almost two years now, and I’ve gotten used to it. It feels like I’m just away at boarding school or summer camp.”

I wondered what could have happened in his life that made him move away from his family so young. His mention of boarding school made me think it was something like that. Like whatever that good-but-overwhelming-thing was meant that he had to move somewhere else for a while and lose the stability they thought living here would bring him.

“How do you like it here?” I asked.

Bay paused like he was really thinking through the question. I appreciated it—I wasn’t just making small talk to pass the time, I really wanted to know.

“I’m liking it more and more by the day,” he said.

“Yeah?” I asked. “Why’s that?”

“Because moving here introduced me to you.”

I was pretty sure my heart stopped beating.Scratch that—I was pretty sure my whole freaking body was shutting down.

“Technically, that could have happened from anywhere,” I stuttered out. “You know, since we met in a group chat.”

“No, we all got new local numbers when we moved here, so we wouldn’t have added you by accident if we weren’t here. Besides… I’m hoping that at some point, you’ll let me meet you in person, too.”

The idea of letting any of the boys from the group meet me in person made me want to break out in hives. How I presented myself over text and in real life was completely different from one another, and I didn’t have any hope that they would like both. The fact that he had gotten through this much of a call with me and didn’t hate me was a good sign, but it was no guarantee.

“I don’t know…” I said. “That depends.”

“On what?”

“Which boy you are in that photo you sent,” I said. “I need to make sure I’m not wasting my time on someone who wears ugly hoodies.”

Bay laughed loudly. I pictured him in my head, sitting in his hospital-like bedroom, maybe on his bed in the same way I was, his head thrown back in a laugh. I wondered whether the other boys could hear him and if they were wondering who he was talking to. If they asked, would he tell them? I wasn’t sure why, but I hoped he wouldn’t. I liked the idea of this being our own little secret meeting.

“I’m the one wearing the navyDisney World hoodie,” he said. I put the phone on speakerphone and pulled up the photo in the chat again. He was the boy in the middle, one of the three who was grinning at the camera. Though, unlike the other two, his wasn’t a wide, toothy smile. Instead, it was a grin, almost a smirk even. It was hard to judge someone based solely on the bottom half of their face, but if I had to, I’d say he was pretty cute.

“Good choice,” I said. I looked at the sweater a little more closely and noticed that it seemed older. If I had to guess, I’d say it was from the 70s or 80s. “Vintage?”

“My dad’s,” Bay supplied. “I swear half my clothes are from him.”

“That’s cute. Like a way of staying close to him even when you live far away.”

“Exactly.”

A brief silence followed, and I glanced at my clock. It wasn’t that late, but if I wanted to get through to Sloane tonight, I had to do it soon. “I guess I should go,” I said. “It's getting late.”

“But there’s no school tomorrow, right?” Bay asked cheekily. I briefly wondered why he knew the school schedule—we should have had school tomorrow, but they made it an emergency PA Day for some reason—but I pushed it out of my mind. It was probably just a lucky guess or something. “Surely you can stay up for a little bit longer?”

I glanced at my door. My mom didn't like me to stay on the phone too late at night. But my door wasclosed, and if I kept quiet, I could probably get away with it.

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