Page 1 of Shy Girls Can’t Date Celebrities (Shy Girls Sweet Romances #6)

“Hey, how was your last class?” my best friend Kylie asks when we meet at our lockers.

“Piece of cake,” I reply. “I’m already ahead in my reading.”

Kylie smirks. “AKA, you’ve already written your history assignment?”

I already have so many check marks against my English, history, and social studies classes. It makes breathing a little easier.

“And that’s why we’re such a good team,” Kylie says, hooking an arm behind my neck. “We have such nice skills to trade off.”

“Hey, ready to go?” Parker, Kylie’s boyfriend, calls out to her.

Kylie nods ahead. “Want me to ask Parker to drive you home?”

“No, I’m cool. I’ll take the bus.”

“It’s no problem,” she insists.

I give her a hug and hoist my backpack over my shoulder. “No, it’s fine. You’ve been buzzing about your date since first period. I won’t cramp your style.”

Kylie clicks her tongue. “You never do that.”

I give her a bright smile. “Go. Have fun.”

She waves me off and moves across the hall to Parker.

I dawdle behind some seniors as I make my way out of the school building.

Two cliques pace on either side of me, babbling about the latest gossip.

As the crowd funnels toward the front doors, my pulse runs high as oxygen is squeezed out of the packed space.

I close my eyes tight, hug my waist, and force my feet forward.

When sunlight hits my face, I open my eyes and gasp for air.

A girl to my left gives me a strange look, but I shake it off and keep moving toward the bus stop.

As I wait for my bus, I spy Kylie and Parker moving into the student parking lot.

Parker is talking with two of his friends.

Their movements are casual and effortless.

I seriously don’t understand how anyone can get through those hallways without some kind of mini panic attack.

But maybe I’m the weirdo.

I’m glad Kylie has found some confidence since being with Parker. She’s happier and livelier now, hanging out with him and his friends. Now, when I’m hiding out and creating a new story, I also have free time to fantasize about being with the guy that got away.

The bus arrives and I find a seat near the front.

I do my best to avoid the middle and the back.

The middle is where any object can become a projectile, and the back is gossip town.

The amount of mornings I’ve spent on the bus, listening to the newest hookup or breakup news, irks me to my core.

Since my middle school sweetheart became headline news for gossip websites, I have zero tolerance for rumors.

I get off the bus and into my house about ten minutes before my mother drops the twins home.

Casey and Callum are ten-year-old handfuls.

Well, Callum is sweet as pie, but can be easily led by Casey, who is the reason they got banned from the school bus.

Casey is on a conspiracy theory kick at the moment, and she likened everyone onboard the bus to sheep being driven to a meat factory.

Needless to say she freaked everyone out, and our parents agreed to an indefinite pause on the twins taking the bus.

Now, it’s my job to ensure they do their homework and wash up before Mom comes back from work.

If my parents didn’t have me, Mom would have to switch to part-time hours.

She already panics about the thirty minutes she needs to make up for pickup.

If only I had learned to drive, I could help out a little more.

But I’m already an anxiety-riddled mess walking side by side with other students.

I couldn’t imagine getting behind the wheel of a car and being part of crowded traffic.

Nuh-uh.

No, thank you.

Dad already works such long hours, he’s usually home well after dinner. Money always causes such deep wrinkles in my parents’ faces. Anything I can do to relieve their stress, I’ll do. Even if it means playing third parent to my younger brother and sister.

By the time Mom gets home, I’ve prepared dinner. The relief and gratitude on her face raises my spirits, and I leave it up to her to pry the twins away from their video game.

With a moment to myself, and all my homework up to date, I give in to the nagging voice inside my head. I unlock my phone and check what they’re saying online. My stomach knots just thinking about it.

Wyatt Hayes.

Suspected brain injury.

That’s literally the biggest news going around social media right now.

Oh please, please, please.

Be false.

Be a big nasty rumor without a shred of truth.

But the truth is, no one has seen him in public for a few months.

Production on his new movie shut down.

Something massive happened, and it was covered up for weeks, until someone leaked that he was in a serious accident.

“Josie!” Casey calls out to me.

I drop my phone and move into the living room. “What?”

Casey stands in the living room, her arms crossed. “Mom said you cooked eggplant lasagna.”

“That’s right.”

“I thought it was real lasagna.”

I huff and roll my eyes. “It is real food.”

Callum’s lip upturns. “What the heck is eggplant? Did you put an egg in a pot plant?”

I snigger at his comment. “No, it’s the purple vegetable.”

They both screw up their faces. “ Eww .”

I huff again, turning to leave the room. “Hush, you two. You’ll enjoy it.”

We get through dinner and it’s finally past the twins’ bedtime.

Sometimes, getting them to shower, brush their teeth, and tucked in, feels like a full-time job.

I leave Mom downstairs to chill in the living room, and Dad should be home any minute.

The twins still love hearing a bedtime story, and I always read them something I’ve written.

But something about tonight’s story has really riled them up.

As I leave for my bedroom, my sanctuary, I hear their mischievous little voices calling out to me again.

I trudge to their doorway, about to snap. “Oh my gosh, will you two just go to bed?”

It’s like their only mission in life is to give me a mammoth crater of a headache.

They giggle and blow raspberries at me from their twin beds.

“Ugh. You guys are the worst.”

I move back to my bedroom, unlocking my phone.

Between opening word docs and refreshing my newsfeed, my phone is getting a massive workout.

I lie flat on my back, diagonally across my double bed, with my curls cascading away from my face.

As the queasy sickness vortexes in my stomach, I keep an eye on the posters lining my walls to keep a semblance of grip on reality.

Since something happened on the set of Wyatt Hayes’s latest movie, the tabloids and social media have been speculating on his current condition. Piecing together the scraps of information, the reports say he’s in a private hospital called The Clearview Clinic, and worse rumors he has amnesia.

I don’t even want to fathom it being true. Kylie keeps telling me that if so many online commentators are saying it’s true, it can’t be one-hundred percent false. But my heart just won’t let me believe it’s true.

I try my best not to look at what people are saying online.

Sometimes, I go days without checking social media, and that’s the way I prefer it.

Instead of letting the speculation fester its way into my brain, I open the notes app on my phone and jot down lines of poetry.

Unlike my short stories, which I share with friends and family, the poetry is just for me.

I’ve never told a soul I write it, and I’m fairly positive I’ll never share it.

I read over a stanza I wrote earlier.

To love you then ,

And love you now,

Another chance is when,

I have you somehow.

I mull over the words, feeling something off about the timing and phrasing.

My fingers itch by the phone’s keypad, and it dawns on me how to fix it.

To love you then,

And love you now,

Another chance when,

You’re here somehow.

I drop the phone with a sigh, wondering how Wyatt could possibly be back here one day.

I sit up and pan around my array of posters, paparazzi candid snaps, and professional event photos that I have plastered on my walls.

I reach over and trace around the line of polaroids we took three years ago.

The one where he’s kissing my cheek still makes me blush.

When I started sixth grade was one of the best times of my life.

Wyatt joined my class because was held back and needed to repeat sixth grade.

He was nervous, shy, and a bit of a loner.

I gravitated to him right away, and was thrilled when our teacher asked me to help tutor him.

I’ve always loved reading and writing, and he was one of the first people I ever shared my short stories with.

The more eager he got to hear me read something I wrote, the more enamored with him I became.

My gut cramps and I slouch forward. Deep down, I know the idea of amnesia hurts so badly because I’ve spent the last two years fearing he’s already forgotten me.

I don’t hold it against him that he stopped replying to my texts.

It was a whirlwind when I got messages or photos after he won his season of Talent Quest. When recording studios and movie sets became the norm for him, I can see why he got too busy for his former life .

I pick my phone back up, feeling another stanza simmering inside me.

In my heart near,

Body too far,

An ache it sear,

Longing for the star.

It’s okay that he stopped catching up with me because I’ve never stopped following him and his career.

I move off the bed and place my phone on my desk as I wake my laptop.

It’s not healthy, but I can’t help refreshing the news site still loaded on my browser.

With much of the same in the headlines, I change tabs to my favorite streaming site that has Wyatt’s movies.