Chapter 19
Brielle
“I didn’t know what to do!” I held the phone up to my mouth as I talked as quietly as I could.
I was leaving Lia a voice message as I walked to the field.
Tryouts were happening, and I wanted to watch.
“He brought me tulips in the middle of class! Everyone saw it, and of course, there are probably a million shares of those videos now. I know he’s trying to keep up appearances and all, but oh my gosh. Lia!”
I pressed send. She’d get it. The whole “oh my gosh, Lia” part was essentially me saying, “I’m a mess. I’m wrecked.”
I brought the phone up to my mouth again and pressed record when I thought of something else.
“This wasn’t supposed to happen. The whole thing started to get my aunts off my back—and Jenessa and Claire. Then Brooks shows up and . . .” I let out a squeaky whimper. “I’m falling for him!”
Send.
There. I’d done it. I’d admitted it to Lia. What was she going to do from Canada, anyway? Nothing, that’s what. Besides, she was my best friend-sister-forever-and-ever, and she deserved to know the truth. Even if I was lying to literally everyone else in my life at the moment.
“Bri! Over here!”
Claire bobbed up and down as she waved her hand over her head. She was here for her boyfriend, Hunter, who was pretty much a shoo-in like Reece. Their tryouts were more a formality than anything.
“Omigoshthatwassocrazyhowareyouevenbreathing?” She grabbed my hands, her eyes wide with absolute awe and wonder. “Tulips! In front of everyone! That’s soooooo much better than Valentine’s Day chocolates.”
I couldn’t agree more. “It was pretty amazing.” At least I didn’t have to fake that.
“I texted Jenessa like immediately. She told me to get that video up ASAP because, seriously, you two are going to go so viral over this whole AI-to-real-boyfriend thing. You’ll probably get sponsors.”
“Sponsors? Sponsors for what?”
“For your social media, silly. Your accounts have over 100K followers now. Haven’t you checked your inbox? You probably already have offers from companies wanting to give you free stuff.”
I was afraid to look.
Claire kept prattling on, and I let her.
It was easier to listen as we found seats on the bleachers.
A few parents were there to watch. Some stragglers from school who didn’t really care about baseball, let alone tryouts, but were bored, and then, of course, all the guys who were trying out for the team.
“My older sister was able to get her accounts over 40K, and she had companies sending her cool stuff like water bottles, sportswear, and one company even offered to give her a horse—like a real horse. My parents told her no, but I mean—what if you get offered a horse?”
After a moment of silence, I realized Claire was waiting for an answer. “I don’t want a horse.”
“Well, I do!” She giggled. “Just give it to me then, and we’ll tell my parents after it’s done.” Claire kept watching me until I raised my eyebrows in question.
“What?” I asked.
“Have you?”
“Have I what?”
“Checked your inbox?” Claire asked. Then, without warning, she snatched my phone from me and punched in my lock code. (I never should have given it to her that day at Show Choir). She thumbed through my apps and then to my inbox, and then, “Holy cow! You’ve got a gazillion messages, girl!”
Yay.
I was trying to keep an eye out for Brooks and Reece. I mean, tryouts aren’t particularly exciting, but I still wanted to see how they did.
“EEEEEEEEEE!” Claire clutched at my arm, and my phone almost went flying from her hand as she shoved it toward me. “You got a message from Broody Moody!”
I knew exactly which company that was. “No.” I shook my head. Nope. I wasn’t going to wear sweatshirts adorned with the faces of hot teenage guys with hearts around their heads. I was not a model; the whole concept was creepy, and I was not doing it.
“But these sweatshirts cost at least seventy-five bucks a pop!”
“And they have fake faces on them! I’d be a walking romance novel cover—or horror. No way.”
“Fake faces! That’s exactly why they’re reaching out to you. Brooks was fake until he wasn’t. If you wear their shirts, you’re giving girls all over the world hope that their dream boyfriend is out there somewhere.” Claire ended her sales pitch with a pretty pout.
I stared at her. “You’re crazy.”
She frowned. “You’re the one who’s crazy. All this opportunity and you’re ignoring it. Why?” Claire eyed me with suspicion. “Why are you ignoring it?”
“I’ve never liked attention. It’s why I tried to get you all off my back about a boyfriend in the first place.”
“But now you have Brooks, and everything has worked out more than okay! Embrace it, Bri. Own it. You’re the most popular couple to hit Driftwood since forever.
Brooks shows up in class with flowers? Heck, every girl in school would give their right arm, leg, and probably shave their heads to be in your shoes. ”
“Brooks wouldn’t date a girl with a shaved head,” I retorted.
“Fine. Wigs it is. My point is, Brielle Walters, you are way too relaxed about this whole thing.”
I was anything but relaxed.
In fact, I was growing more and more stressed by the minute.
Claire was beginning to question my authenticity. Brooks had stepped it up today big time—though he could’ve warned me—and now here I was, trying not to literally fall in love with him, and Claire thought I was relaxed?
She had no clue.
But then, neither did I.
I had no idea what I was doing at this point, except getting deeper and deeper into a lie that was growing more and more tangled every moment.
I don’t know what I’d expected.
Aside from what was now titled “The Tulip Video” taking off on social media, Brooks and I had tried to keep things low-key the last two days. Brooks had been acting a little weird, too.
“I think he meant it,” Lia tried to convince me. She waved her hands over her phone camera. “Hellooooo! Did you even look at his face on the video?”
“I’ve tried not to watch the video,” I’d admitted. Mostly because I was mortified that it had skyrocketed to several hundred thousand views, shares, and comments.
“Well, I’ve watched it many times on your behalf.
” Lia’s expression had been so genuine. So sweet.
She had lowered her voice and leaned into her camera.
“It was in his eyes . . .” Her voice was swoony-breathy.
“The way he looked at you, Bri. He was—what am I trying to say? He was . . . longing. He loooonnnnnged for you.”
I told Lia she needed to stop eating so much sugar; it was making her delusional.
But if she was right—I mean—if Lia was really right about Brooks .
. . well. This was a huge reason why I was trying not to think about it too much.
Overanalyzing was going to get me into trouble because I wanted Lia to be right. I wanted Brooks to be—
“Ahhhh!” I yelped.
Strong arms interrupted my ponderings as I stood in front of my open locker, peering into it like somehow Narnia was going to appear out of nowhere.
I was swung around by whoever had embraced my waist and—okay, maybe not swung around—I was more half-dragged, half-lifted off the ground. Let’s face it. I’m an average-sized teenage girl, and “wispy or light” aren’t adjectives used to describe me.
It was Brooks. He was holding me.
I stopped breathing.
I think everyone in the hallway stopped breathing, and for sure, a ton of them whipped out their phones for the next viral sensation.
Brooks was oblivious.
His blue eyes were like oceanic waves of Caribbean sparkle.
I was pretty sure I could surf in them—if I knew how to surf.
And, his smile? Don’t get me started. Okay.
I’ll start. It was—amazing. Like, there was a picture I’d seen of Niall Horan in full-on super happy glee, and I had sworn no one would ever be better-looking than that.
I was wrong. Enter Brooks. His smile was so broad it made little creases in his cheeks.
It crinkled the corners of his eyes. It made his jaw more chiseled.
Okay. And then, you add in the fact that his arms were around my waist, and I was a puddle of goo. In fact, I was very hopeful that Brooks wouldn’t release me, because I was pretty sure I’d collapse on the floor.
“I did it!” He announced. His face was very close to mine. So much so that I was eye level with his mouth.
“Y-you did what?” I should have known. It wasn’t rocket science that Brooks had been waiting to hear from Coach about tryouts.
“I made the team. Varsity. I’ll be the starting catcher.” I think he grinned even wider.
I had never seen Brooks this happy. This excited. This carefree and unworried about what everyone was thinking.
Plus, he still held me around my waist, and I was so close that I had to put my hands on his chest to help me balance.
Be. Still. My. Pounding. Heart.
Chill, Walters, be chill. I summoned my inner Lizzie Bennett.
She wouldn’t faint or get all googly-eyed in this moment.
Instead, she would have something snarky to say, or something smart and sophisticated.
So I tried. I really did. I tried to be like Lizzie.
(Maybe I should make that my personal hashtag. #BeLikeLizzie.
“I would congratulate you, but I fear it would only increase your already considerable vanity. So instead I shall simply say: ‘Well done.’”
Brooks drew back a bit, blinking in confusion.
Too much? Yeah. That was way too much Lizzie Bennett. Flushing with embarrassment, I resorted to trying the buddy-factor. I slapped his chest with my hand like a pal and said, “Never mind, dude—good job!”
Brooks’s smile had faded, but now it crooked in the corner. He glanced around quickly at the growing circle of onlookers and very active phone cameras. “Are you okay?” he whispered.
“I’m a little freaked out at the moment,” I squeak-whispered—if that was a thing.
“Me too!” He smiled again and then did the unthinkable. He reached up and tucked my hair behind my ear.
My hair!
Behind my ear!
I could feel his fingertips graze my skin.
“C’mon!” Brooks tugged on my hand, and within moments, we had escaped the high school paparazzi and were back in a familiar place.
The janitor’s closet.
Only this time, Brooks didn’t knock a million things over, and he knew right where the chain was to flick on the light. He leaned back against the door.
“I did it,” he stated again.
He was so proud of himself, too. I could see it in every crevice of his face.
“You didn’t think you wouldn’t, did you?” I had no idea why Brooks even doubted himself so much.
Brooks shrugged. “I don’t like to be overconfident.”
“But there’s cocky, overconfident, and then just plain confident.” I hoped I was encouraging him. “You’re the nice sort of confident, and you have every reason to be. You’re a great catcher.”
His eyes narrowed, and he studied me. “You really think so?”
I was touched that my opinion mattered. “Of course I do. And I would tell you if I didn’t.”
Brooks chucked. “Yeah. You would.”
There was silence, then.
It got kinda thick.
Then a bit awkward.
Not to mention, the janitor had moved stuff around, so to be in the closet together, we had to stand . . . close together.
“I’m—proud of you,” I admitted. I was also trying to fill the silence.
“You are?”
I lifted my eyes, and they connected with Brooks’s. “Of course I am.”
He stared at me then, and his expression softened.
I couldn’t breathe. That seemed to be happening a lot lately.
“You’ll come to my games?”
Games. Plural. He wanted me around for the season? That meant—wait. Of course. If I didn’t show up at his games, then people would question if something was wrong. I couldn’t get all excited about this. Not now. This was all part of the act. Part of the show. Part of the deal.
“Of course I’ll come.” I wouldn’t have it any other way. It was baseball, after all.
“Good.”
That one word, “good,” had so much feeling oozing out of it.
The closet was getting warm.
I could smell cleaning chemicals.
I could also smell Brooks, and he always smelled so good. So spicy. So warm. I leaned into him without realizing it.
He bent his head.
I lifted mine.
“Bri . . .” he mumbled.
“Yes?” I asked, breathless. This was it. That moment in every movie when the facade falls away, and everything becomes real, and the girl gets her first kiss and—
The closet door swung open, and since Brooks had been leaning against it, he fell backward, taking with him a mop, a broom, and a box of paper towels in his attempt to stay upright.
I, of course, did what Lizzie Bennett would not have done. I screamed. Bloody murder. Because I’d been so into my first romantic moment ever that I had not expected Janitor Dickson to open the door and create utter chaos.
“Get out of there, you two!” he reprimanded, batting at Brooks as though we’d been caught in a full-on make-out session.
Brooks scrambled to his feet.
I made a frantic attempt to parkour over the fallen cleaning supplies.
My foot landed squarely on top of a roll of paper towels, squishing it.
“Ya’ll want to get detention?” Janitor Dickson shouted. I highly doubted he had ever watched a romance movie in his life. “Get to class!”
As Brooks and I trotted away from the closet as fast as we could, it was then that I heard her.
Lia.
From my phone in my back pocket.
“Did he kiss you?” she squealed. “What just happened!”
What had just happened, indeed? I wanted to know that too. I also wanted to know how on earth I’d forgotten that Lia had been listening in that entire time. A play-by-play after school was in order.
We needed to figure out what had just happened.
Stat.