Page 38 of Shy Girls Can't Date Celebrities
“No, I’ll be okay.”
“Are you sure?”
He blows out a shaky breath, eyeing the early evening view ahead of us. “I don’t want to hear about my life. But... Can, can I hear about yours?”
“What do you want to know?”
A small smile tugs at the corners of his mouth. “What you’ve been working on. Would you read to me?”
My heart eases to a slower pace and I reach into the pocket of my dress. “Hmm. I’ll need to find one of the stories I’ve put the most effort into.”
“But I thought everything you wrote had maximum effort.”
“I’ve gotten a lot more serious since you last read something of mine,” I say, scrolling through the Docs app on my phone. “My editing process is a lot more ruthless.”
“But you don’t cut out the heart, right?”
“Never. I’m just more thorough with something before I let it out into the world. Plus, Casey is a really harsh critic.”
“What, isn’t she, like, four?”
I giggle. “The twins are ten-years-old now.”
Wyatt sighs, shaking his head. “Whoa. They wouldn’t even know me anymore.”
“They do think I’m lying about knowing you,” I admit. “Even when I show them old polaroids of us. Casey’s a skeptic, like Dad, and she thinks I’ve doctored the photos.”
Wyatt shakes his head, shifting uncomfortably. “Don’t tell me anything about me not being in your life. It’s fr-freaking me out. Distract me with a story.”
I nod hurriedly, scrolling through my word docs.
Wyatt sits back, readjusting the washcloth as he stares up at the ceiling. “Which one has been given your tough seal of approval?”
My finger hovers over one. “Well, this one won the Courtney Prize last year.”
Wyatt grins at the ceiling. “An, an award winner. Okay, I, I gotta hear this one.”
I bite into my lip, fingers trembling as I sit back, ready to read to him. “Okay, here goes. It’s called ‘Marked Alone.’”
I read him the story about a man living in an isolated cabin in the woods. The man has everything he needs for survival, but he yearns for home. As the story progresses, it becomes clear he can never return home because he’s now in the only place that is safe. I finish with a cliffhanger ending about how the world changed after chemical warfare.
“Whoa. That was intense,” Wyatt says, pulling the washcloth off his forehead. “So many twists and turns. No wonder it won a prize.”
I grin, taking his washcloth back to the sink. “Thanks, Wyatt.”
“It was so sad how he reminisced about his home,” Wyatt says, leaning his chin on his hands as he watches me over the back of the couch. “I wonder what’ll happen when I go home.”
“You’ll be safe at home.”
“I don’t think I live with my parents,” he mutters.
“You don’t?”
“Someone told me that. Erin?”
I shake my head, walking back to the couch. “I don’t know an Erin.”
He sits back as I return to the couch. “Who called you?”
