Page 14 of Billionaires Don't Date Cheerleaders
“Okay, okay,” Mom said, trying to stop us before this could turn into yet another fight. “Grace, I know this isn’t as early as you wanted, but you didn’t properly communicate what time you wanted to leave, so Sloane had no way of being ready.”
“She knew what time I wanted!”
“Are you sure?” Mom asked. “Did you wait for her to agree to it? To say she would be ready?”
Grace deflated a little. “I guess not, but she still could’ve?—”
“She didn’t need to,” Mom said. She looked at me. “Sloane, are you ready to go? If we leave now, you’ll still get there early.”
“I need coffee,” I said.
“Get it at school,” Grace snapped. I shot her a dirty look. While the school cafeteria did sell coffee in the mornings, it wasmore expensive and tasted worse than the coffee we made at home, and I wasn’t spending my money on that.
“I have coffee made downstairs,” Mom said. “I’ll pour some into a travel mug while you get your shoes on.”
“Thanks,” I said. Once I was sure she was downstairs, I grabbed my makeup bag from my desk and stuffed it into my backpack as well. Once I turned sixteen, Mom started letting me wear small amounts of makeup on normal days—mostly just mascara and lipgloss. Of course, I always had to do a full face when I was cheerleading, but outside of that, she felt that it was “inappropriate” to wear more than that. But of course, I wasn’t going to not wear it just because she told me not to, so I always did my makeup when I got to school (all the more reason Grace was being ridiculous about us going to school extra early—we always got there early anyway so I could do that). Normally, I just kept my makeup bag in my locker to make that easier (and make it less likely for my mom to question why I had so much when I had to use it so infrequently), but I hadn’t gotten the chance to bring it to school yet that year.
I grabbed my bag. “Okay, let’s go.”
“Finally,” Grace groaned.
“Grace, I swear, if you complain one more time, I’ll make sure Mom stops for breakfast at a drive-thru.”
She didn’t speak for the whole drive—although I could practically feel her vibrating with excitement, even from the front seat.
“Have a good day, girls,” Mom said as she pulled over in the drop-off lane. Grace barely even waited for the car to stop before she was out and running to the doors of the school. I followed behind, a little bit slower. But as much as I’d grumbled all morning, I was really only complaining about having to get up early, not about Grace’s excitement to meet the band.
Because if I was being totally honest? I was a little excited, too.
Only a little, mind you. I hadn’t gone into total fangirl mode or anything.
I was just a teensy, little bit excited to potentially get to meet Jude in person. And who could blame me? He’d seemed so fun on Twitter. I was excited to see what he would be like in person. I’d seen occasional videos of him (aka all the vlogs and band documentaries that Grace had practically forced me to watch), and he did seem like fun in those, but I was also very aware that online personalities could be easily manufactured, especially when it came to celebrities. And honestly, he could probably nail that persona just as easily in person, considering his job, so I wouldn’t even be able to trust what I saw of him at school. It would take a lot of digging to see the real him.
I wasn’t even sure why I cared about that thought. What did it matter if I didn’t know the real him? It wasn’t like he and I were going to become friends or anything. Sure, he’d flirted a little online, but again, that was just part of the persona his management demanded of him… right?
When the bell rang for first period, I practically had to drag Megan there. Clearly, she’d been dreading this moment all weekend. And, apparently, she was right to, because as soon as we sat down, our French teacher, Madame Dubois, told us she had an announcement.
“It is my pleasure to tell you all,” Madame Dubois said flatly, “that two of the members of the band will be in our class.” She glanced over the attendance sheet to check who they were. “Hudson Shaw and Jude Turner.”
Holy. Crap.
What were the chances of that?
As the whole class burst into screams of excitement, I grabbed Megan’s arm tightly. “Hudson Shaw!”
“What?” Megan yelled back.
“Hudson Shaw,” I said again, carefully enunciating the words. She must have forgotten who he was, though, because she didn’t react at all. “That’s the boy you met last week! And the one at the mall!”
Megan grimaced at my words, which I guess I should have expected, considering how she felt about the band, but I had been hoping that she would be a little more excited. Oh, well—she didn’t need to be that excited because I could be excited enough for the both of us. Plus, I had my own boy to worry about—would I get the chance to talk to Jude?
Principal Roman poked her head through the class doorway and knocked lightly. “Is now an okay time?”
“Yes, come on in,” Madame Dubois said. Principal Roman stepped inside, closely followed by two boys I would recognize anywhere—Hudson and Jude. I instinctively tightened my grip on Megan’s arm as I smiled at her.
“Everyone, these are two of our new students. Hudson and Jude,” Principal Roman said, as if they needed to be introduced. The whole class—except me and Megan—burst into applause. “These two are going to need guides to show them around the school. Do we have any volunteers?”
As expected, everyone’s hands were up in the air within a second. Megan slid down her chair a little, keeping her eyes trained down. Ironically, it made her more noticeable in the sea of excited faces when I was sure that wasn’t what she was aiming for.
