* * *
I wake up Sunday morning to Indi shaking me. “What’s wrong?”
“Uhm, so… I know you shut your phone off when we got here so you could escape everything, but you should maybe turn it on.” She wrings out her hands as she speaks to me, shifting from foot to foot, nervous as fuck.
“What happened?” I ask, scrambling to grab my phone from the nightstand.
She shuffles around so she’s sitting cross-legged, looking like she might cry. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t think this would happen, but apparently someone recorded you singing last night. And uh… It’s kind of gone viral.”
I let out a deep breath. The way she was going on, I thought someone had died. “Is that all?”
“You’re not mad?”
I laugh softly as she deflates in front of me. “Why would I be mad?”
“Well I basically made you get up on stage.”
I put my hand on hers and squeeze. “Indi, you didn’t make the video or post it. Plus, this isn’t the first tape I’ve had go viral, even just this month. I’d much rather this one than the deep fake. Honestly, it’s fine.”
I push the button on my phone, powering it up as she flops backward on the bed. It’s barely seconds before it’s buzzing out of control in my hand.
I push through most of the junk, deleting all the crazy shit, when I find a text from Raleigh. I haven’t really spoken to him properly since we decided to just be friends.
Raleigh: You were amazing, V.
Raleigh: I miss you
Raleigh: I really wish things could have worked out between us.
Raleigh: Why are you ignoring me?
Raleigh: Oh I see, you go viral and suddenly you’re too good to talk to me. I see how it is.
Raleigh: Well fuck you too
I let out a deep breath and flop back to lie beside Indi. “Why are boys so gross?”
“What happened?”
I pass her my phone because showing is easier than telling. She sits up, red in the face. “What a fucker. He’s been a little weird about you since the whole thing happened, but I figured it was simply a bruised ego. He has no right to talk to you like this.”
I shrug my shoulders, resigned to the fact that boys are not worth the hassle. “Privileged football players aren’t used to hearing the word no, I guess. Not all of them of course, some of them are beautiful humans, like Jackson. But there’s something about quarterbacks. And this is precisely why I don’t usually date sports types. The egos are way too fragile.”
“I’m sorry, V. What a dick.”
I sit up and smile. “Fuck it. It is what it is. Now what are we doing with our last day here before we go back to normalcy?”
“Massages?” she suggests, and I can’t help but grin.
I wonder if there’s a Dylan O’Brien look alike around here.
Chapter Twenty-Two
When I got home yesterday, I was glad to see that there weren’t any media stalkers at my gates. That’s the upside to the video having been taken not in my hometown, I guess. I might have to take Smithy up on the personal security thing if it gets bad again, though.
Lincoln didn’t appear last night either, and I hate that I’m conflicted about whether or not I’m happy about that fact.
So much for wanting a normal year.