Page 47 of Once Upon a Boyband
He scrolls through my contacts and pulls up Laney’s number. Then he hitsCall.
Just like that. No warning. No asking for permission.
It’s almost eleven PM, and he justcalled her.
My heart starts pounding as Freddie puts the call on speaker, one ring, then two sounding through the phone. Just before the third ring, Laney answers.
“Hello?”
I breathe out a sigh of relief. At least she sounds fully awake and not like we just pulled her from a dead sleep.
“Hi, Laney? It’s Freddie. How are you?”
“Oh my gosh,” Laney says, then she laughs. “I’m fine, Freddie. How are you?”
“Actually, I’m just sitting here with your man, Adam, and we’ve been playing some music.”
“Yeah? How’s it going?” Laney asks.
“Brilliantly. So brilliantly, in fact, that I was thinking you might like to listen in. Can we FaceTime you?”
“Hmm. Can you put Adam on the phone before I answer? And take me off speaker?”
Freddie rolls his eyes dramatically, but then he smiles. “Sure I can. Hang on.”
He hands over my phone, and I take it off speaker before lifting the phone to my ear. “Hey.”
“Hi,” she says. “I just wanted to make sure you weren’t being held against your will.”
I chuckle. “Nah, I’m good.”
“Do you mind if I listen while you sing? Because I would love to, but I would also be happy to fake a headache if you’d rather I not.”
Something catches in my chest. It feels profoundly significant that even as much as Laney was—still is?—a Midnight Rush fan, she’s still asking me this. Thinking about how I feel rather than how much she might enjoy hearing Freddie Ridgefield sing to her over FaceTime.
Weirdly, the fact that she’s prioritizingmeover the music makes me want to sing for her more.
“I’m good if you’d like to listen. Freddie has a way of getting what he wants anyway.”
In front of me, Freddie lifts his arms in triumph. “FaceTime, man. Let’s do this.”
I initiate the call, and Laney immediately accepts, then it buffers for a second before her face fills the screen.
She looks like she’s in bed, wearing a hoodie, with the hood up, glasses on, and her hair in a loose braid hanging in front of her shoulder.
I am very much a fan of this version of Laney.
“Hi,” she says, offering me a shy smile. “This was unexpected.”
“I hope Freddie didn’t wake you up.”
“Nope. Just reading.”
Freddie gets entirely too close as he leans into the frame. “Hi, Laney. Nice to see you again.” He takes the phone out of my hand and walks over to the piano. “Adam tells me I gave you quite the shock when I showed up. I’m sorry I prematurely outed your boyfriend. Though I was sad to learn all that hyperventilating wasn’t for me.”
I brace myself for Laney’s rebuttal, her insistence that I’m not, actually, her boyfriend, but she only laughs. “I was not hyperventilating.”
“Come on,” Freddie says. “We both know you were close. What do you think? Was it forty percent me, sixty percent Adam? Can I claim forty percent?”
