Page 1 of Billionaires Don't Date Cheerleaders
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There weremany disadvantages to being the older sister of a fangirl.
For example, she spent all of dinner every day talking about the band to the point that I could hardly ever get a word in beyond “pass the salt.” And she frequently quizzed me on facts about the band and got mad when I answered wrong. And, perhaps worst of all, when her friends weren’t here, she forced me to watch their videos with her.
“Grace, this has been really fun—” I couldn’t hide the pain in my voice as I said it, as hard as I tried “—but I have some homework to do, so…”
I tried to stand up slowly so I wouldn’t spook her, but Grace grabbed my arm in her talon grip and pulled me back down. I landed hard and barely avoided smacking my head on the wall. Too bad, maybe if I’d hit my head and gotten a concussion, she would let me go.
Ha. As if.
“You have to stay!” Grace said without taking her eyes off the screen. She had her laptop perched on her knees, with Jude Turner’s livestream running on it, except our crappy wifi meantit was all pixelated and his voice wasn’t aligned with his mouth moving.
“Why?” I groaned. I looked out her open bedroom door toward mine across the hall. My bed was just waiting for me over there—seriously, I could practically hear it calling out to me, telling me how comfy it was and how I was missing out. “It’s just some stupid livestream.”
“It is not stupid!” Grace snapped. She finally broke her gaze from the screen to glare at me like I’d just kicked her dog. “And you have to stay because if he picks us, you have to ask the question.”
I used my free hand to pry her hand off my arm and placed it gently on her lap. My arm was red from where she’d been digging into it.
“First of all, the chances of him picking you are so small, they’re barely even worth mentioning,” I said. Grace believed with her whole heart that she was destined to meet the boys and that even if there were thousands of people watching these streams, there was no doubt in her mind that she would be picked. I tried not to be a total jerk, so I usually didn’t remind her of the improbability of that happening, but I thought she deserved it right now. “And second of all, even if he does pick you, I’m sure you’re more than capable of asking a question yourself without any help from me.”
“You know I can’t do that!” She cried.
“Why not?” I asked. “Give me one good reason why?—”
“Shut up, shut up, shut up!” Grace said, slapping my arm lightly with each word. I shot her a dirty look but did as she asked. First, I had to stay in here for the whole livestream, and now I wasn’t even allowed to talk? “Why’s my screen loading like that?”
I leaned in so I could see her laptop screen better. The livestream was still open, but the view had split. Instead ofseeing the chat, there was now a black screen with a losing symbol in the middle of it on half the page, while the other half was still Jude on the stream, droning on about picking another person to ask a question.
“I’m not sure,” I said slowly. I had a feeling I did know what it was doing, but I didn’t want to get her hopes up by suggesting it—that Jude actually had picked her, and it was just taking a second for us to be connected. This wasn’t the typical kind of Q&A they did where people just submitted questions—he was actually getting the fans on camera, so it was more like a FaceTime call with your favourite boyband member.
“Should I reload the page?” She asked.
“No!” My hand shot out to cover the trackpad so she couldn’t click it. If she actually got picked, this would be the biggest moment of her life and I wasn’t going to let her ruin it for herself. But I also didn’t want to get her hopes up, so I cleared my throat and said, “I mean… wait a minute. It might come back and…” I trailed off as the loading symbol disappeared and then the two of us appeared on the screen, being recorded from her webcam. Well, she was front and centre, while I was awkwardly hovering at the side, with only half my face visible.
Suddenly, I wished I’d made myself look somewhat presentable for this. When I got home from school today, I’d just thrown my hair in a messy bun and put on an oversized “I Love London” shirt I’d gotten on my trip last summer, that was so stained from makeup that you couldn’t even tell it used to be white. Just because I wasn’t as big of a fan of the band as Grace was didn’t mean I wanted to look like a total slob when I met one of them for the first time—even if I could only be half-seen.
“Hey there!” Jude said on the livestream. “What’s your name?”
Grace had a little trouble answering since her face was busy turning blue. I rolled my eyes and shifted the laptop, so we wereboth properly in frame, my messy looks forgotten. Who would remember how bad I looked when I was sitting next to a human blueberry?
“This is Grace,” I said, because she was clearly too busy trying to get oxygen to her brain to be able to say it herself. I wondered if she could even remember her name right now. “Sorry. She’s a little over-excited.”
Jude laughed, leaning back on his couch like this happened all the time. Maybe it did. I’d seen videos of girls fainting at their meet and greets, so he could think this was a completely normal reaction of a fan meeting him. “No need to apologize. But, is she…” He frowned, which looked so wrong on his face because I’d never seen him do anything but smile in videos, and tilted his head. “Breathing?”
“No,” I said flatly without looking at Grace. She was probably fine. “But don’t worry, I know CPR.”
Jude’s frown turned back into a grin and to my surprise, he looked genuinely interested as he looked at me. “What’s your name?”
“I’m Sloane,” I said. I jerked my thumb toward Grace. “I’m her sister.”
“And what’s your question?” Jude asked. I glanced at Grace, giving her one last chance to jump in and ask her idol a question, but she shook her head adamantly and pointed at me.Ooookay. Maybe it was a good thing she kept me hostage in here to ask for her.
“Grace,”I said, emphasizing her name, because I didn’t want him to think I was the one asking this, “is wondering if you have ever, or would ever, date a fan.”
The question was stupid—she would obviously know if he had already dated a fan, since she was one step down from being his stalker, and there was no way he was going to say he would never date a fan on a livestream full of them. If he did,the world would be able to hear millions of teen hearts breaking simultaneously. But she told me to ask him, and it wasn’t like I cared enough to ask a different one. Not to mention, I didn’t want to risk her wrath if she realized I’d chosen a new question for her.
“Oh, good question,” Jude said.Yeah, right. I wondered how many times he’d been asked this. How many times he’d thought to himselfno chance, but I can’t tell anybody that. “I haven’t in the past, no. And I guess… well, I wouldn’t be opposed to it either. I think it might make things challenging, but we could make it work if she was a really great… Uh, sorry, did your sister just faint?”
