Chapter 12 #2
I was debating whether to sit on the metal bench when my phone started ringing in my pocket. Since all my closest friends were with me, I couldn’t imagine who would be calling right now, especially with it being so late—until I saw the caller ID and groaned.
Tino glanced over. “Who is it?”
“My brother.” Now, I loved my brother to bits and I loved talking to him, but the only reason he would be calling me on a whim this late in the evening would be if something bad happened, or more likely, he wanted to annoy me. I sighed and hit accept. “Hey, Luca.”
“Lilah Turner!” Luca’s voice boomed through the speaker, loud enough that Tino jumped. Yep, annoy me it was. “You got a boyfriend and didn’t tell me?”
I honestly hadn’t been expecting that to be what he was calling about, mostly because I didn’t think the news of this would ever reach him, but I wasn’t surprised that he would call me about it once he found out.
“It’s really new,” I said.
“That’s no excuse! Do you have any idea how embarrassing it is that I had to hear about this from a fan in my DMs sending me a photo of my baby sister kissing some thug in the hallway at school?”
“He’s not some th—”
“And a Valentine brother no less!” Luca continued as if I hadn’t said anything. “Which one of them is it? I have to fight him.”
I pressed my lips together to keep from laughing. “You do not have to fight him. And I’ll give you exactly one guess, since there’s only one of them who goes to my school.”
“Where is this guy? Put him on the phone.”
“Luca—”
“Now, Lilah.”
I groaned, but held the phone out to Tino. “He wants to talk to you.”
Tino’s eyebrows shot up. “Seriously?”
“Be grateful it’s not an in-person interrogation.”
He sighed, took the phone, and said cautiously, “Uh, hey?”
Then, knowing he was distracted, I stole the bucket of popcorn back. I’d regretted giving it to him pretty much the moment it left my hands. He scowled at me but it only lasted a moment since he was busy listening to whatever my brother was saying at the same time.
“Oh, yeah, I know who you are. Hard to miss, man.” Pause. “No, I promise I’m not secretly plotting her doom.” Another pause, and he actually laughed. “Yeah, I can do that. We’ll see you when you’re back in town.”
He held the phone out to me, still smiling.
“He didn’t threaten to kill you?” I asked, taking it back.
“Nope. Surprisingly civil.”
I lifted it to my ear again. “Luca?”
“Still here,” he said. “Seems like a nice enough guy, although I’m still not convinced I shouldn’t fight him since you have been complaining about him for the last three years.”
I rolled my eyes. “Well, opinions on people can change. And I never really hated him, he just annoyed me sometimes.”
“Annoyed you because you’re in love?”
I snorted. “We’ve been dating for a day—it seems a little premature to say love.”
“Well, anyway, there was actually another reason why I wanted to call you.”
“You mean other than to harass my boyfriend?” It felt weird to say my boyfriend like that, especially when talking about Tino, but I guess I needed to get used to it.
“As a matter of fact, yes. That was just a benefit.” He cleared his throat. “I’m not sure if you’ve seen but we’re up for this music award and there’s an event for it next weekend. They gave us extra tickets for friends and family, and I figured you might want to come.”
“Of course I want to come,” I said immediately.
Even though I often found my brother’s fame overwhelming—such as when I was being chased through an alleyway by rabid fangirls—I would always support him.
I loved going to his concerts, either in the audience or backstage, and I wanted to be there for something like this.
“Really?” Luca said in a relieved tone. By the sound of it, you would think he’d expected me to say no and yell at him for even inviting me in the first place.
“Well, I was thinking you could come spend the weekend at our house—the band’s house, I mean, in Bibridge.
We’ve got a guest room you can stay in and, uh…
” He paused for a second then practically mumbled, “I guess you could bring your boyfriend if you want.”
“What was that?” I asked in a teasing voice.
“You can invite what’s-his-name along if you want,” he repeated in a more normal tone. “We’ve got extra tickets anyway and it seems like he makes you happy.”
I looked over at Tino. He’d moved down the line slightly, talking animatedly to Mako about the worst movie sequels of all time, his breath coming out in white puffs. The glow from the streetlights made his hair look almost gold.
“Yeah,” I said softly. “Something like that.”
Luca must’ve heard something in my tone, because his voice gentled. “Have fun, okay? You deserve it. And I was just kidding about fighting him, for the record.”
I grinned to myself. “As if you could take him anyway.”
“Hey!” He sounded genuinely offended, which only made me laugh harder.
“Goodnight, Luca.” I hung up before he could get another word in and slipped my phone back into my pocket.
Tino looked over, abandoning his conversation with Mako. “Everything good?”
“Yeah. He just wanted to… vet you, I guess.”
“Did I pass?”
I pretended to think. “Barely.”
“Ouch.”
I shrugged and ate another handful of popcorn. “He was mostly concerned that you’re not good enough for me—you know, since your brothers decided you weren’t good enough to be in their band and he trusts their judgement.”
Tino scowled again. “You know that’s a sensitive topic for me.”
It wasn’t—Tino knew he sounded like a screeching bird when he sang and he was happy to be the hockey player in the family. He’d insisted up and down that one day he would be just as famous as his brothers, just in sports instead of music.
“Well, I guess it’s a good thing Luca doesn’t get to decide who I date.” I took a deep breath and glanced away as I added, “But I guess he doesn’t totally hate you because he invited us to come stay with them next weekend.”
I watched Tino out of the corner of my eye but that was enough to be able to see the surprise that crossed his face. “Like you and me? Together?”
“There’s some award show thing,” I said. I stole another handful of popcorn to keep my hands busy but didn’t eat it yet. “And he was just going to invite me but now that he thinks we’re dating, he invited you along too.”
“And you… want me to come?”
I shrugged, trying to be nonchalant about the idea of spending a whole weekend with Tino, away from school.
It didn’t mean anything, of course. It was all just part of the ruse.
But for some reason, it felt like a big deal.
Tino and I had never seen each other outside of school, so the idea of bringing him to my brother’s house—where Luca lived with the other members of Take Five—made my heart pound.
It made me feel like we were a real couple.
“I mean, if you want,” I said, because I couldn’t very well say no. “But I understand if you don’t want to! I know you’d have to get permission from your parents to leave the school for that long and you might have hockey stuff and—”
“I’d love to come,” Tino interrupted. I was surprised by the genuine tone in his voice—he wasn’t giving in because he thought it would sell the fake dating image to the rest of the school or because he felt like I was pressuring (or if he was, he was hiding it really well).
I blinked. “You mean that?”
“It’ll be fun,” he said. He watched my face and faltered. “Won’t it?”
I forced a smile. “Yeah. Absolutely.”
The bus pulled up and we dropped the conversation as we got on board, but I still thought about it for the rest of the ride home—Tino and me going on what would look to everyone else like a romantic weekend away together.