Page 73 of Once Upon a Boyband
There are worse ways to wait for your not-quite boyfriend to shave. And shower, apparently. Though I didmy best not to think about that one too hard. Adam, right on the other side of that door. Warm water. Suds. All that skin.
“Adam?” I call, my hands still pressed to my eyes. “Are you coming out?”
“Maybe not,” he says back.
I drop my hands. “Why not?”
“Because I look like a different person.”
“Come out here and let me see.”
“Nope. Not happening.”
I stand and move toward the door. “I’m sure you look amazing. And it’s not like you can put it back?—”
The door flies open, and my words stall in my throat.
Adam is…wow.
He does look like a different person.
He looks like Deke.
I have never seen Adam this dressed down, in dark gray joggers and a white t-shirt, and my stomach swoops as I look him over. He’s stillhim,but he does look younger. And so much like the Deke of my youth.
“I look stupid,” he says.
There isnothingstupid about him. In fact, I think I might have once described something just like this in the abysmally bad fanfiction I wrote in the tenth grade, when I briefly considered a career as a writer. Midnight Rush released their debut album that year, and my obsession was in full swing. Deke was younger than he is now, obviously, but I specifically remember a story about a freshly showered, post-concert Deke randomly encountering a fan outside his trailer and being so taken with her, he volunteers to be her first kiss.
My stories were totally innocent and sweet, but it still sends a wave of embarrassment washing over me. To thinkabout how I thought about himthenwhen he’s standing right in front of menow.
“You do not look stupid. You look amazing.”
He runs a hand down his face. “I’ll probably get used to it. But I’m growing the beard back as soon as the concert is over.”
“I love your beard. I would love for you to grow it back,” I say. “But I love this too.”
Honestly, I love his beardmore.Maybe just because it’s how I’ve always known him. Maybe because it works so well with the flannel he loves to wear. But you won’t hear me complaining about how he looks now.
My phone buzzes with an incoming text, and I read it off my smartwatch. “Ivy says she wants proof that the deed is done.”
Adam frowns. “What, like a picture?”
I shrug. “Or you could just walk down the hall. It sounds like they’re all hanging out in the common area.”
He sighs. “Fine. Let’s just get it over with.”
I am definitely a fan of this slightly grumpy version of Adam, and I happily follow him out the door and down to a comfortable seating area where Leo, Jace, Freddie and Ivy are sitting with…Oh. My. Gosh.
That’s Flint Hawthorne.
TheFlint Hawthorne. The Oscar-nominated, been in a million movies, monumentally famous Flint Hawthorne. Just hanging out like it’s no big deal.
I shouldn’t be that surprised.
I did some googling before I left this morning, and I learned a couple of things. One: Stonebrook Farm is owned by the Hawthornes—family of the famous actor, Flint Hawthorne, who apparently grew up in Silver Creek. Whichexplains how Freddie found the space. More than one online source indicated that Freddie and Flint are friends, and I easily found a dozen different photos of the two of them together at a Lakers game in LA.
I met another Hawthorne at dinner—the one currently running the farm—and remember thinking he bore a slight resemblance to his famous brother. Eventhatfelt thrilling. But to actuallyseeFlint here? When just last week, I watched him blow up a building in the new Agent Twelve movie?
