by Ali Novak
“Well, for starters, I’ve already looked at your hand twice. It would be really nice if you laid down the queen of hearts,” she answered innocently.
I burst out laughing and sat down.
My mom turned when she heard me. She had flour in her hair and on her face. “Morning, honey,” she said with a smile. “Want a pancake?”
“I don’t know,” I said, trying not to laugh. “Did you make them?”
“No,” my mom grumbled and waved the spatula at me. “Your dad took over. He was mumbling something about scramcakes.”
“All right, I’ll take one.”
“Thanks for the love and support,” my mom said. Nevertheless, she took a plate down from the cabinets and held it out for my dad to scoop one perfectly golden cake onto. The syrup and orange juice were already on the table, so she only grabbed a fork before setting the breakfast in front of me.
“Thanks, Mom,” I said happily and dug in.
“Who’s that for?” Cara asked when she finally spotted the gift bag.
“Yum, this is great, Dad,” I told him through a full mouth. When I swallowed and set down my fork, I turned to Cara. “Possibly for a nosy sister.”
“Ohhh!” she exclaimed and wiggled her eyebrows in excitement.
“It’s your birthday present,” Drew added.
“Is the nosy, yet completely charming sister allowed to open her present?” she asked.
“I suppose so.”
“Yay!” Cara gushed and clapped her hands together. When I pushed the bag across the table to her, Drew scooted away in caution. Cara was about to flip.
Cara pulled out the tour T-shirt first. When she unfolded it, she smiled. “Aww, thanks, guys. I love the Heartbreakers.” I could tell that she was trying to be nice, since she thought we had gotten her a T-shirt that she already had.
“You’re welcome,” I said. “When did you get a hole in the armpit?”
Cara shrugged. “Oh, it’s been there since—” She stopped suddenly and then flipped over the sleeve to see if it really was her own shirt. Frowning, Cara looked back and forth between the two of us. “I don’t get it. You’re giving me my shirt?”
“Your new and improved shirt,” I told her with a smirk.
She looked confused for a moment before something finally clicked in her head. “No way!” she said in disbelief and flipped the shirt over to inspect it. There in black Sharpie were the boys’ names.
“Oh my freaking God!” Cara screamed. “This is amazing. No, this is better than amazing. This is like Christmas on steroids!” She was so excited that she didn’t know what to do with herself. First she squeezed the shirt to her chest before deciding to pull it on over the one that she was already wearing.
“Thank you guys so much,” Cara said, looking at both of us. She acted like she was going to cry. “You totally win best birthday present this year.”
“You haven’t even finished opening it yet,” I pointed out.
“There’s more?” She tore into the rest of the bag, squealing with glee each time she pulled out another one of her signed belongings.
“I don’t remember this one,” Cara said when she unrolled the poster that Xander had given us.
“It’s not out yet,” Drew told her. “Xander said it’s going to be in the next issue of Tiger Beat.”
“He gave this to you?” Cara exclaimed, her eyes practically popping out of her head. “You say that like you know him.”
For a moment, I think Drew forgot that we were talking to Cara, a.k.a. the crazy Heartbreakers stalker. “Well, yeah, we hung out with them Saturday night.”
Cara spent the next few hours interrogating us about the Heartbreakers. After Drew mentioned that we had hung out with the band, my sister made us share every detail about our trip. As a punishment for his slip, I made Drew do the retelling. While he told the story, I let Cara flip through my camera. I had recorded most of the night. There were a few pictures of Oliver cooking, shots from the pool, a video of one of the chicken fights, and of course the pictures I had taken of Oliver at Starbucks.
“So, who has the prettiest eyes?” Cara asked as she watched the chicken-fight video for the tenth time.
Drew raised an eyebrow. “You’re really not asking me that, are you?”
Cara set the camera down before resting her elbows on the table and propping her head up in her hands. “In my opinion it’s JJ,” she said dreamily.
“I don’t know,” Drew said and rolled his eyes. “I was leaning more toward Alec.”
“What do you think, Stella?” Cara asked as she continued to stare off into space. My thoughts went immediately to Oliver, but I wasn’t going to tell her that. After years of trying to convince me that the Heartbreakers were “so hot” there was no way I would admit to Cara that she had been right all along.
Drew smirked at me. “No contest there.” Then he traced a heart in the air with his fingers.
“Shut up!” I hissed and gave him a hefty kick to the shins under the table.
“What the heck, Stella?” he complained and rubbed his sore leg. “That hurt.”
Cara snapped out of her daydream and turned to me. “Huh? What are you guys talking about?”
“Absolutely nothing,” I lied and looked away so she couldn’t see the pink forming on my cheeks.
“Bullshit,” Drew coughed.
“Do you want another kick?” I threatened.
“Okay, you have to tell me now,” Cara said and clicked her manicured nails across the table impatiently. I glared at my brother, daring him to say something. “Stella?” Cara asked.
I kept my mouth shut, and Drew and I continued our silent staring contest. Finally he looked down. I thought I had won and for a moment I silently celebrated a victory, but then he smiled wickedly.
“OliverPerrygaveStellahisnumber!” He spoke so fast that his words blended together. I almost didn’t understand, and by the time I did, Drew had jumped out of his chair and well away from my foot.
Cara giggled. “No, really. What are you guys talking about?”
“‘Please call me, Stella,’” Drew mocked.
I gritted my teeth together. “I am going to kill you, Drew!”
“Oh. My. God,” Cara said slowly. She looked back and forth between us. “He wasn’t joking?”
When neither of us said anything, Cara had the confirmation she wanted. “Holy shit! Oliver Perry gave you his number? You’re such a lucky bitch. Oh my God, can I see it?”
For someone who wasn’t very mobile, Cara was adept at launching herself toward my pocket where my phone was tucked away. I pulled my cell out of my jeans, and she snatched it away before I could blink. While Cara was searching through my phone, I flipped Drew off.
“Where is it?” Cara demanded. “You guys weren’t lying, were you?”
“No,” I said as my cheeks turned red. “It’s under ‘Starbucks boy.’”
Cara eagerly flipped through the numbers again until she found Oliver. “Wow,” she said slowly. “That’s really it?”
“Yeah,” I answered, feeling slightly uncomfortable. Cara was staring at my phone like it was a miracle from heaven.
“So have you called him?” she asked. I could tell she was doing everything in her power to keep from hitting the call button.
“No,” I muttered.
“Oh my God. Okay, so when you do, you need to tell me everything. Do you think it would be weird if I said hi? I know he doesn’t know me, but come on. You know I’m like the Heartbreakers’ biggest fan,” Cara gushed.
“Sure, no problem,” I said quietly.
Sensing my discomfort, Drew switched the subject as he sat back down at the table with another plate of pancakes. “Okay, moving on to something way more important than a phone number. What do we want to do for our birthday on Friday?” Thank you, I mo
uthed to Drew even though it didn’t make up for him being a jerk.
For our birthday, I wanted to do something simple so we wouldn’t have to worry about Cara. Last year had been perfect since we spent the day on the beach. Our aunt and uncle own a cottage on the ocean in South Carolina, and my entire family flew out to visit them for a whole week.
We played sand volleyball and Frisbee with our cousins—Cara cheering from the side—and swam in the cool water. For breakfast, lunch, and dinner we munched on fresh watermelon and sipped lemonade. When it got dark, we built a bonfire in the sand and roasted marshmallows as the waves crashed against the shore in a soothing nighttime song.
“We could go to the movies,” Drew offered and shrugged his shoulders.
“That’s so boring,” Cara whined as she spun my phone in circles on the tabletop.
As much as I agreed with Cara, I couldn’t think of something to do that was a perfect combination of safe and exciting. “A movie could be fun,” I said slowly. “Didn’t that one thriller just come out?”
“I don’t like thrillers,” Cara complained. She turned to Drew. “Besides, didn’t you say that you would never go to the movies with me again?”
“What?” he asked.
“Oh yeah,” I said and snorted. “Remember the Twilight premiere?”
“Oh God,” Drew said and buried his face in his hands. “Don’t remind me.”
Cara had been so excited about the opening of Twilight that she dragged Drew to the midnight showing with her. But that hadn’t been the worst of it. She dressed up as Alice and forced Drew to be Edward. After the movie, he had run into his crush from school, his face covered in sparkling glitter.
“We looked so perfect,” Cara said, remembering the event fondly.
“You put powder on my face,” Drew said, irritated. “I looked like an idiot.”
“And that’s different from any other day?” I said. “I think I have a picture of you on my computer somewhere.”
“Okay, never mind,” Drew grumbled. “We’re not doing a movie.”
Chapter 9
I wasn’t expecting a call.
A week had passed since my adventure in Chicago, seven full days since Oliver and I said good-bye. Dad had taken time off from work for Cara’s homecoming, and we’d spent most of our time curled up in the living room watching classic movies or sitting at the kitchen table playing cards. For our birthday we went to a local park, enjoyed a picnic, and watched the fireworks for the Fourth. It wasn’t a beach day in South Carolina, but it was still nice.
My life reverted to the boring routine that had existed before my path collided with the world’s most famous boy band.
Or so I thought.
Today, it was just Cara and me—Mom and Drew were in Minneapolis for his class registration, and Dad was back at work. Cara had dozed off some time ago to E! News, but I refrained from changing the channel to something I actually liked. Instead, I was skimming through one of the books my mom checked out of the library for Cara when my ears perked. A small part of me was hoping to hear anything about the Heartbreakers or Oliver.
I had made the decision not to call him. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to; I did, but I also knew that nothing was ever going to happen between us. He was a world-famous musician, and I was just normal, boring Stella. I’d had my one Cinderella night, and I didn’t want to ruin its magic with a letdown. By not calling, I was figuratively closing the door on Oliver Perry.
It wasn’t working very well. Despite my best efforts, I couldn’t stop thinking about him or how I’d felt when he kissed me.
When my phone rang, the book flew from my hands and hit the floor with a flutter of pages.
“Hello?” I answered in a whisper, not wanting to wake Cara. I slipped out of her room, carefully closing the door behind me.
“Is this Stella Samuel?” a man asked on the other end of the line.
“Speaking.” I settled onto the worn couch in our living room.
“Darling!” he exclaimed, and I had to hold the phone away from my ear so I didn’t go deaf. “I’m so excited to finally talk with you.”
“Sorry, but who’s this?”
“Oh, how silly of me. My name is Paul Baxter. I’m the Heartbreakers’ publicist. I wanted to speak to you about some photographs you took of the band.” My back instantly straightened. Why was the Heartbreakers’ publicist calling about my pictures? When had he even seen them? “Stella? Hello?”
“Yeah, sorry.” I cleared my throat. “Um, you mentioned my photographs?”
“Yes, yes! Alec showed me the shots you took a few weekends ago.”
“Oh, right,” I said, remembering the email I’d sent to him.
“You’re quite talented with a camera. There’s this quality about your pictures that I can’t put my finger on. It’s like—” Paul paused as he tried to explain himself. “I suppose this sounds cheesy, but you have a knack for capturing the energy in a moment.”
For at least three full seconds my mind was completely blank. Paul’s praise was so unexpected, so unbelievable that nothing he said registered in my mind. But there was warmth flowering in my hands and feet, the feeling growing and spreading through my body like a vine, and finally my brain jolted out of its lag. The Heartbreakers’ publicist likes my work?
“Stella, are you still there?”
“Yes,” I said, my voice squeaking. “Sorry. My head’s all jumbled up right now. I don’t even know what to say. You really like my stuff?”
I could hear Paul smiling into the phone. “Cross my heart and hope to die. You’re phenomenal, and that’s why I’m interested in working with you.”
There was a flutter of lightness in my chest and head, and I didn’t know if I was going to pass out or float away. Was this a joke?
I’d always hoped to make a living from my photography, but I also knew it wasn’t the most realistic career in the world. That’s why I’d decided to go to college before pursuing my real interest. Maybe I’d get a degree in advertising or marketing and somehow spin that into a commercial photography gig. Or maybe by the time four years were up I’d have discovered a completely different passion, and photography would fade into a high-school hobby.
But Paul’s offer could change everything. Suddenly a dream was in the foreground of my life, closer than it had ever been before. How was that even possible? I was proud of my work because it meant so much to me, but I never considered it good. Not like Bianca’s. Did Paul really want to hire a teenage girl with no professional training?
He dove right into his proposal. “My job with the band is to generate and manage the Heartbreakers’ publicity. Think of me as a bridge between the boys and the public. Now, it’s no secret there are rumors about the Heartbreakers splitting up. Some say there’s tension between the boys, and others talk about too much pressure from the label. Regardless, it’s my job to squash those rumors—they’re poisonous—but the more I try to quiet the buzz, the louder it gets.”
Paul sighed into the phone, and even though I’d never met him, let alone finished our first conversation together, I felt bad. The stress in his voice was evident, all his earlier cheerfulness gone, and the rumors seemed to be poisoning him as well.
Why in the world is he telling me all of this?
“Sounds frustrating,” I said carefully, “but I’m a little confused. Is there something you think I can do to help?” As I spoke, I shook my head, struggling to believe the words coming out of my mouth. A lot had changed since my trip to Chicago—one week ago I would never have offered to help the band I disliked so much.
Paul sighed again, this time in relief. “As a matter of fact, there is. None of my normal strategies are working, so I’ve been toying with an idea that’s a bit unorthodox. Tell me, do you have any experience with blogging?”
“Not really,” I admitted. I’d thought ab
out posting some of my pictures on Tumblr in the past, but I’d always chickened out.
“Don’t worry about it,” Paul said quickly. “For this project, I want to turn my focus away from the rumors. Instead, I need to concentrate on showing the world that the Heartbreakers are stronger than ever.”
“Okay?”
“You managed to capture the band when they were goofing off and being themselves.”
“We were just hanging out. I’m still not sure what you’re asking of me.”
“Stella, I don’t remember the last time I’ve seen the boys look that happy,” he said, “and I want more of that—it’s gold. What’s I’m proposing is that you run an official photo blog for the Heartbreakers. You’ll take pictures of the band, shots of them doing everyday things like hanging out and having fun.”
“So more pictures like the ones I took the other weekend?” I asked.
“Exactly like those. You’ll also be responsible for the actual blogging. With each picture you post, there should be a short description of what’s happening. Talk about your time with the band so fans feel like they are there experiencing the moment with you.”
I paused. “But how will I take more pictures?”
“From what I’ve heard, you made fast friends with the boys. All you have to do is hang out with them. I’m positive you’ll get plenty of material to work with.”
“Hang out with them? Like on a regular basis?” How the hell was that going to work? The Heartbreakers were in a new city every other day.
“Yes, of course. You’ll join us on tour. I’ve never done something like this before, so it will be a learn-as-we-go experience for both of us, but I really think an out-of-the-box approach could be successful. What do you think? Are you interested?”
I took a deep breath. “Truthfully, this is all a bit overwhelming.”
“Completely understandable,” Paul said quickly. “I threw lots of information at you, and I’m sure it’s a lot to process. Why don’t you take a few days to think things over and then we can talk?”