Page 2 of Billionaires Don’t Date Cheerleaders (Texting the Boyband #2)
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Sloane @its_sloane
Why does a boyband need to go to high school anyway
I leaned against the changing room’s lockers and scrolled through my phone, barely able to keep up with all the notifications coming through at once.
“Everyone’s freaking out,” I said to Megan. She seemed to be the only person not even remotely interested in the announcement as she calmly changed out of her gym clothes. “Especially everyone on the cheer team.”
“Not surprising,” Megan said. She grabbed dry shampoo from my bag and sprayed it on her roots. We didn’t have showers at our school, so we all had to make do after gym class. “As much as I hate to admit it, they are the biggest band in the world.”
I looked around the room. Even though we only had limited time between classes, most of the girls weren’t in any rush to get changed. Everyone was either glued to their phones or had their heads pressed together, whispering, just like they had been ever since the sudden announcement on the loudspeaker in the middle of our class. “ Starting next week, on September 17th, the school will have some new students. I expect all of you to treat them with the same respect and dignity that you treat all your other classmates—this includes respecting their privacy and personal space, not asking for autographs while at school, and not impeding their learning in any way. I ’ m sure you are all wondering who these students are. And it gives me great pleasure to tell you all that the members of the famous boyband Take Five will be starting at our Summerfield Prep this coming Monday.”
If I hadn’t seen everyone else’s reactions, I would have thought I was hearing things. After all, why would the most famous boyband in the world be coming to our school, of all places?
Group name: Summerfield Cheer
Members: Sloane, Jess, Kelsey + 15 others
Kinsleigh
omg!!!1!1!1!
Eloise
DID I HEAR THAT RIGHT
Jenny
IM SCREAMING
Alisha
IS THIS A PRANK???
Paige
the principal would never do a prank!!
Cate
Did somebody else get on the PA system or something??
Fiona
No it was definitely Principal Roman
Layla
I can't believe this
“Are they saying anything interesting?” Megan asked. I sighed and closed the group.
“Nope,” I said. I was about to turn off my phone to finally get changed for my next class when I saw a text from my sister.
Grace
DID YOU HEAR
Sloane
What?
Grace
THE ANNOUNCEMENT!!
TAKE FIVE
OUR SCHOOL
I’M GOING TO FAINT
My sister was the biggest fan of Take Five I’d ever met. Not only did she like their music, but she was obsessed with the boys in the band, too. She had a ranking list of who she liked the best, her room was covered in their posters, and she practically stalked them online. If there was one person at school who would faint from the news, it was her.
Sloane
Please don't faint
Wait actually do
If I have to come help you, I'll get out of class
Grace
OMG imagine if one of them ends up in my class!!!
I would die
Sloane
Are any of them even your age?
Grace
YES
Neil!!
He’s not my favourite member
But I’ll take anything
Sloane
How generous of you
The door of the change room slammed open and Coach Reynolds took a step inside and put her hands on her hips, surveying the room of girls who are very much not changing for their next class. I quickly slipped my phone into my backpack. I wasn’t risking getting my phone confiscated today of all times.
“Ladies!” Coach Reynolds's voice boomed through the changing room. Everyone fell silent and looked at her nervously. “Need I remind you that your next class starts in two minutes? Get changed and head off. Now , please!” She turned and left again, clearly expecting us all to listen.
Megan sat down on the bench between the locker rows and smirked at me as I hurried to pull off my gym clothes. She stretched her arms out beside her, then rested them gently on the wood, leaning back in a relaxed pose.
“Yet another reason not to like Take Five,” she said smugly. “They make you late for class.”
“Is that Take Five’s fault, or is it the fault of everyone texting me?” I finished pulling on my clothes, threw my hair up in a claw clip, and grabbed her hand. “Come on, we have to run to get to class on time.”
Megan pulled her arm out of my grip. “Forgetting something?”
“What…” I glanced back and saw her pointing at my backpack, which I’d left on the floor. I groaned and grabbed it. “Okay, now do we have everything? Good, let’s go.”
Our last class was chaos for the whole period, especially when Donna Myers—a fangirl whose love for T5 rivalled Grace’s—jumped up and announced that Finn Parker and Jude Turner were spotted at Sunset Cafe. It was possibly the least productive class we’d ever had.
“Do you have your car today, or do we have to walk?” Megan asked as we walked out the front doors of the school.
“Walk,” I sighed. “Tom insisted that he needed the car today.”
My brother was at the community college in town, so we shared the car. We didn’t have a good system set up for when each of us got to use it, though, we just chose based on whoever needed it more.
“What for?”
“Dunno. As a rule, I don’t take an interest in his life.” We finally reached the front gates—AKA the point where I no longer needed to be in proper uniform—and I stopped Megan by putting a hand on her arm. “Hang on, I want to change my shoes.”
“I’ve never understood how you find your flimsy sandals more comfortable than sneakers,” Megan said.
“I just hate sneakers,” I said. I did this every day, so she was used to it, even if she still found it really weird. I pulled a pair of sandals out of my backpack and dropped them on the ground. I used Megan’s arm as balance while I pulled off my sneakers and put on the sandals instead.
“Thank you,” I said. I stuffed my shoes back into my bag and then glanced at my watch. We’d made it out of school in good time, so I wasn’t in a huge rush. My parents insisted that I had to be home within half an hour of getting out of school, which made it difficult to make any stops but not impossible if we were quick. “Come on. If I hurry, I might be able to stop at Starbucks with you.”
When we got into the Starbucks, it was strangely empty. I guess, like Donna, a lot of people had seen the news of the boys being at Sunset Cafe and decided to try their luck by going.
“Do you mind ordering me a mocha?” I asked Megan. I held up my hand so she could see all the pen marks Jess had scribbled on me during our cheer team meeting at lunch. “I just need to use the bathroom and try to wash all this ink off me before my mom sees it and goes on one of her rants about how drawing on myself is a gateway drug to getting tattoos.”
Believe it or not, that was a lecture I had gotten many times in my life, and my mom seemed to become even more serious about it each time. It was up there with how make-up eventually led to plastic surgery. The most she let me do was lip gloss and mascara, which she graciously allowed me to start wearing when I was sixteen.
“Yeah, of course,” Megan said. I smiled in gratitude and dropped some money in her hand, then skipped off to the bathroom. Megan always made fun of me for skipping and sashaying everywhere, but it was a habit I picked up from the especially peppy girls on the cheerleading squad, and once I started, I just couldn’t stop.
I hummed to myself as I slathered on some hand soap and started scrubbing. I wondered whether my parents had any idea how much I did behind their backs while they thought I was their perfect daughter—everything ranging from drawing on myself with pens to sneaking out the window every Friday and Saturday night to go partying with the football team. My mom would probably faint if I ever admitted any of it to her. It was ironic that I was a social butterfly with parents who tried to keep me away under lock and key, while Megan’s parents did everything short of begging her to go out while she sat at home reading constantly. I loved her to death, but I did think it wouldn’t hurt her to get out a little bit more.
It only took me a couple of minutes to finish getting the ink off. I glanced at Twitter again as I walked out of the bathroom and laughed as I saw how many people were posting about going to Sunset Cafe to stake out the band.
“Okay, I’m ready,” I said as I came into the main area of the coffee shop again. “Hey, did you see that…” My voice got caught in my throat as I looked up and took in the scene before me: Megan with coffee spilled all over her shirt, standing across from a celebrity —whose hand was outstretched as if he was going to touch her chest and my gosh, I so did not want to know why.
I had to be losing my mind, right? Or had I somehow stumbled into some parallel universe where one of the biggest celebrities in the world came to our Starbucks and started talking to Megan?
“Sloane! Hi!” Megan said. Even though I was pretty sure she was trying to hide it, the panic in her voice was obvious to me. I wondered whether she even realized who the boy was or if she was more concerned with the fact that he seemed to be planning to wipe up the coffee from her chest himself.
“Megan,” I said slowly. I kept staring at the boy, even though his eyes were back on Megan. I grabbed my drink from where it was sitting on the counter, freshly made, and then took Megan’s hand. “Sorry to interrupt, but I’ve got to get home, and she needs to come with me.”
“Wait!” He said. “Let me pay for your coffee. I’m the one who spilled it.”
I mentally pieced together what had happened here. When Megan and I walked in earlier, there’d been a boy standing by the counter. I hadn’t paid any attention to him then—I hadn’t seen his face. And then, while I was in the bathroom, he somehow spilled Megan’s coffee all over her.
“You can repay her some other time,” I said, desperate to get out of here immediately.
The boy’s eyebrows pulled together in confusion. “But I don’t know you.”
“Oh, don’t worry,” I said, thinking back to the announcement at school earlier today. It gives me great pleasure to tell you all that the members of the famous boy band Take Five will be starting at Summerfield Prep this coming Monday. “You’re going be seeing a lot of us very soon!”
I pulled the door open and pushed Megan outside ahead of me, only sparing a momentary glance at the boy before following. Megan complained, but I ignored her as I looked through the window and saw the boy continuing to stare at us. I didn’t want to have this conversation in front of him. I pulled her down the street until I was sure we were far enough away that he wouldn’t follow, and put my hands on her shoulders, staring at her intently.
“How did you meet that guy?” I demanded breathlessly.
“What?”
“How did you start talking to him? What did he say?”
“What?” Megan laughed awkwardly. “I mean, I know he’s cute, Sloane, but?—”
“No, forget that,” I said. There was no way that she knew who he was. She couldn’t tell if she was acting this cavalier about it. Even someone like her, who wasn’t a fan, would still have some sort of reaction to meeting a celebrity, right? My grip on her shoulders tightened. “Megan, that was Hudson Shaw.”
“Hudson…” She trailed off like she wasn’t following who that was or why he was important. Did she live under a rock or something? I knew she wasn’t a fan of the band, but there was no teen girl in the world that didn’t know their names.
“Hudson Shaw,” I repeated slowly. “The lead singer of Take Five.”
A long beat of silence passed before Megan pulled away from me and laughed. “No. That’s ridiculous, Sloane.”
She continued walking down the street as if I’d just told her the sky was blue and not that Hudson freaking Shaw himself just spilled coffee all over her. I grabbed her arm again to stop her.
“No, it’s not,” I insisted. “Trust me, Megan, I know what Hudson Shaw looks like. Grace has his poster on the outside of her bedroom door, so I have to walk past it every day, and that—” I pointed at the coffee shop, “—was him. I’m positive.”
Megan stared at me, realization slowly dawning on her face. “That doesn’t make sense.”
“It doesn’t matter if it makes sense because it happened.” I glanced at my watch and huffed in annoyance. “Look, I’d love to keep talking, but I have to get home. Just…” I shook my head. “Megan, you just met Hudson Shaw.”
I could barely comprehend the words even as they came out of my mouth. If I hadn’t seen him with my own two eyes, I never would have believed it happened.
The house was suspiciously quiet when I got inside, which was strange since Grace should have been home too. But when I walked into the kitchen, I glanced out the window and saw her in the backyard, practically jumping around while she was on the phone. Of course.
I grabbed a glass of water and took a long sip, leaning against the counter as I tried not to laugh at Grace, who was now twirling in circles, her phone still pressed to her ear. She was probably planning the next fan club meeting or scheming with her friend about how they were going to get the boys to fall in love with them the moment they showed up at school.
Setting my glass in the sink, I wandered into the living room, flopping onto the couch with a sigh, and pulled out my phone. A quick scroll through my notifications didn’t reveal anything interesting—just a bunch of boring updates and one reminder that I’d probably ignore until the last minute. So, instead, I swiped over to Twitter.
Take Five Boyband @takefiveofficial
Hey everyone, Jude here! For the next 15 minutes, I’ll be doing a Q)
T5 for Life @ilovetakefive
Jude’s really out here sharing Hudson’s business and I’m living for it
Hudson @hudsonshaw
I’m not.
Sloane @its_sloane
Shouldn’t be hard to do… she goes to his school after all
[retweet] Retweet if you think Hudson should try to find the girl he spilled coffee all over today