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Beth had mentioned the video going around, but I seriously thought she’d been joking about it going viral. I wasn’t sure whether I was happy about that or not. It had been such a personal moment.
“Yeah, you went viral.” Zane grinned and he tugged his phone out of his pocket. “Want to read some of the comments?”
“Um...are you sure that’s a good idea?” I chewed nervously on my lip. “Isn’t the comment section usually the dumpster fires of the internet?”
He laughed, clicked some buttons on his phone, and then slid it gently on the counter toward me. “Usually, but this time it’s good. I swear. You can trust me.”
My eyes lingered on his smile for a long moment. Inside my chest, my heart flittered like a bird testing its wings for the first time. There was no doubt that I could trust Zane in any situation. That had been firmly established. So, without hesitation, I grabbed the phone and began to scroll through the comments.
There were too many to focus on just one, but as I read them, my eyes filled up with tears once again. This was more than I ever could’ve hoped for. Girls from around the world were finding courage from my school’s stand against bullying. They were vowing to do their own makeup-free days at their schools so that no other girls would feel like they had to hide. It was beautiful. I couldn’t believe this had all happened in one day.
“Is this what you came here to show me?” I asked, looking up from the screen to find Zane watching me, his eyes filled with a sweet and tender affection.
“Partly.” He took the phone from my hands and stepped closer, leaving only inches between us. The light in his eyes changed to a serious tone once again. “Thanks to this little speech of yours, my PR team has been running wild. My numbers are up. I’ve got hundreds of thousands of more followers on all my social media platforms thanks to the Makeup Girl. Apparently, people like that I’m...” He tilted his head to the side, as if at a loss for words. “That I’m associated with you.”
My eyes narrowed. I wasn’t sure what he was trying to say. “Isn’t that a good thing?”
The left side of his mouth curled up into a disbelieving smile. “Yeah, that’s a good thing. The movie execs are ecstatic. Any good press for me is good press for their movie. And because of that, I was able to have my dad renegotiate my contract.”
It felt like the lining of my throat had thickened. I pressed a hand to my neck and tried to swallow. “What...what does that mean?”
“It means that for once in my life, I manned up and stood for what I wanted.” His eyes glimmered as he moved in closer and took my hand in his. “I’m not playing the heartthrob anymore. That’s not my role. It never has been. And it means you don’t have to walk away. Not if you don’t want to...”
He left the end of the sentence hanging, almost as if he were asking a question. My gaze darted back and forth between his eyes. I wasn’t sure I was hearing him correctly. It sounded like he was asking me to be with him.
“But you’re leaving to go back home.” I squeezed his hand, wishing so desperately that I didn’t have to be a realist in that moment. “You’re going to be far away.”
“My next shoot doesn’t start until May.” His chest rose in a hopeful breath. “And I might not have to leave as soon as we thought...”
He reached out tentatively to brush the hair gently behind my shoulder. The sensation sent shivers down my spine. This sounded too good to be true. How could he be for real?
“How soon is soon?” I asked through gritted teeth.
His lips quirked in a suppressed smile. “How does the rest of the school year sound?
I was going to pass out. “The whole year? As in, until May?”
“I talked my dad into letting me finish out my studies here at Rock Valley High. He’s always known my mom wanted me to have a taste of normal life. To go to a school and be around normal people. I finally convinced him that now was the time to make her dream come true. We’re going to rent a house in town.” His gaze searched my face uncertainly. “I mean, as long as that’s okay with you.”
“Okay?” Excitement boiled up from my gut and spilled into my grinning cheeks, making them feel like my face was going to crack. “Are you kidding me? Of course, it’s okay. This is only the best news in all of time.”
A smile slowly stretched across his lips. “Really? You mean that?”
“Yes!” I threw my arms around him and squeezed so tight I was pretty sure I pushed the air out of his lungs. “You’re going to love Rock Valley High! You can even join the soccer team if you want. For real.”
He chuckled and the noise reverberated through his chest into mine. “That sounds like a normal teenage boy kind of thing. Sign me up.”
Pulling back, I stared up into his face, hardly able to believe my luck. My incredibly gorgeous, Hollywood stud of a boyfriend was coming to Rock Valley High. Well...was he my boyfriend? We hadn’t quite hashed out all the details on that stuff yet. We’d spent so much time trying to just be
friends, it was hard to wrap my mind around being allowed to actually date the boy. Maybe he didn’t even want to put a label on it. I was pretty sure that was how they did things in LA. I could be cool with that, even if boyfriend sounded a million times better.
“Can I ask you one more question?” Zane’s eyes crinkled as he smiled at me and then reached up to stroke my cheek. I leaned into his touch. It was the first time since our meeting in the park that I didn’t feel guilty being around him.
“Yes?”
He leaned his forehead against mine. “Got any plans June twelfth?”
That felt like a lifetime from now. I didn’t want to think about anything past graduation. Not when Zane was here, right now. I looked questioningly into his eyes and he just smiled.
