Page 7 of Celebrities Don't Date Bookworms

Can I come?

Sharky

Sure

Meet me in 5

If I wasn’t certain about them living nearby—which I pretty much was by their phone numbers and them talking about Summerfield last night—the mention of Sunset Cafe solidified it. It was a small, family-owned cafe a couple of blocks away from here that everyone at school was obsessed with. They couldn’t have known about it if they weren’t from the area. I wondered who they were. Even if this wasn’t a prank (and more and more, it was looking like it wasn’t), maybe I knew them.

I glanced around the room like I thought that Imight be able to pick them out of a crowd. It was obviously useless, though—I didn’t know their names, genders, or any identifying information about them. Not to mention, it seemed like they weren’t at school today if they were sleeping in and going to Costco, but just because they weren’t here today didn’t mean that they didn’t go here at all… maybe they all took the day off for some reason, and would be back next week. If three of them were actually my age (much to my annoyance, none of them had confirmed that) and they did actually go here, I was bound to have a class with one of them. It didn’t narrow it down by much, but it was something. Suddenly, I felt like this was a mystery I desperately wanted to solve.

“Class, can we please focus here?” Mr. Barton called over the low din of everyone talking to their friends. It had been thirty minutes since Principal Roman’s announcement—that one of the most famous boy bands in the world was going to be attending our school—and the excitement about it had yet to die.

I did actually feel a little bad for him—nobody had been focused since the announcement last period, and I was sure it was hard to teach when all anybody wanted to talk about was the possibility of sitting next to their favorite member of Take Five at school next week, but he also gave me detention the other day for being on my phone during class, so I wasn’t feeling overly sympathetic towards him. Notto mention, the blackboard was covered in a lot of math equations that I didn’t want to have to learn right now. I didn’t care much about the announcement, but it sure helped me out this period.

“There’s no way it can be true,” Sloane said in a hushed voice. Since we sat in the back corner of the classroom, and everyone else was talking too, I wasn’t worried about him calling us out in particular for not paying attention, but I also didn’t think it was a good idea to talk too loudly.

“She wouldn’t have announced it if it wasn’t,” I said. I gestured around the room. “Look how excited everyone is.”

As if on cue, in the other corner of the room, Donna Myers jumped to her feet and squealed.

“Finn Parker and Jude Turner spotted at Sunset Cafe today!” She yelled, staring at her phone held squarely in her hand. “Oh my gosh, we have to go!”

“Miss Myers,” Mr. Barton said. Donna’s face dropped as she turned to look at our teacher. He looked at her with raised eyebrows and held out one hand. She slowly dropped her phone into his palm and slowly sat back down in her spot. Mr. Barton put the phone down on his desk and looked over the class, making eye contact with each of us. “Thank you. Would anybody else like to join Miss Myers in detention this afternoon?”

The class immediately fell silent at his words. Mr. Barton looked pleased as he nodded and turned back toward the blackboard.

“Good. Now, onto—” The final bell rang and cuthim off. Mr. Barton sighed deeply and dropped his chalk back into the holder, then wiped his hands off. “We’ll continue this on Monday—where you will be more focused. Do you all understand?”

There was a fat chance of that happening. If he thought everyone was distracted today, he would be horrified to see how they acted when they knew their favorite celebrities were in the same building as them. Possibly even the same class—I wasn’t sure how old any of the members of Take Five were, but it seemed likely that they were either juniors or seniors, which meant any of our classes were fair game.

“Yes, sir,” we all chorused. He nodded and waved a hand as permission to pack up and leave. Sloane and I grinned at each other as we stuffed our math textbooks back into our bags—as if we used them at all today—and headed for the door.

“Do you have to go straight home?” I asked Sloane. We walked the few steps to our lockers and stopped. We’d gotten lucky this year by getting lockers right next to each other, which made life so much easier. I took my bag off and started pulling my books out to put away, but paused when I grabbed my math textbook. I hadn’t been paying close attention at the beginning of class, so I couldn’t remember if he’d said there would be any homework today or not. “Did Mr. Barton mention any math homework?”

“Yes to the going home, no to the homework,” Sloane said. She grabbed my lip gloss from the little organizer attached to the inside side of my locker. “Mind if I borrow?”

“Go for it,” I said. She applied some, then smacked her lips before handing it over to me. I shook my head. “No thanks, I’m good.”

“No,” Sloane said. She grabbed my chin and turned it towards her again, then applied the lip gloss to me herself. Then, she pulled at my hair elastic and slipped it out of my hair, letting my light blonde hair fall around my shoulders. “There you go. Much better.”

“Thanks,” I said drily. I tilted my head and put on a beauty pageant smile. “Now I look so pretty to go home, do nothing, and see nobody.”

“Well, maybe that’s your sign that you should go out more,” she said. She pursed her lips and studied me. “You know, seeing as how you don’t have a curfew, and your parents are okay with you not coming home right after school, and?—”

“Yeah, yeah, I get it.” We had this conversation at least once a week. Sloane had way stricter parents than me, so she thought I should take advantage of being able to do whatever I wanted, but I didn’t like going out much. “Tell you what: I’ll go wild and stop at Starbucks on the way home.”

I grabbed the lip gloss back from her and stuck it in my locker before shutting the door and following her down the hallway.

“Just don’t stop at Sunset Cafe,” she said. “All the fangirls are going to be there.”

“Oh, good point.” I laughed. “Who was it that they said was there?”

“Finn and Jude,” Sloane supplied. Neither of uswere fans of Take Five or their music, but her sister, Grace, was obsessed with them, so Sloane knew a lot by association, unlike me. “I would personally argue Jude is the cutest in the band, but that’s just me.”

“Whatever you say,” I said. My phone buzzed a couple of times and I pulled it out of my pocket to glance at it.

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

---