Page 141 of Shy Girls Can't Date Rockstars
I pull my hand away, pretending to adjust my backpack.
“Hey,” he says quietly, and when I glance at him, he’s giving me a weak smile. “You okay?”
“Fine.”
“Yesterday was...” He trails off, running a hand through his hair. “The marketing team loved your photos, by the way. They’ve already posted some of them.”
My stomach flips. “They have?”
“Yeah. I’ll show you.”
He pulls out his phone and starts to show me, but I turn away.
“Don’t. I don’t want to look right now.”
He pockets the phone. “Okay. Are you mad or something?”
I turn to face him. “Mad? No, I just didn’t see you yesterday. And after the performance… I don’t know. You sang ‘Static,’ and I just… I just thought…”
He scoops up my hand. “I wanted to see you. Of course, I sang that song for you. I thought you knew that.”
“I did, but…”
He huffs, slouching in his seat. His knees fall out wide as his long legs take up most of the space in front of us. “It sucks we didn’t spend more time together, but you know the showcase is coming up. The guys and I got so much face-time with the suits this weekend. We might get a better deal before the show on Friday.”
“Really?”
Ryder nods enthusiastically. “Ally, I’m serious. This is a big deal, and I need to focus right now.”
Something about the way he says it makes me queasy. “Then let go of my hand.”
He drops my hand as if it were a live grenade. “Why?”
“You just said you need to focus.”
“Yeah, I do. But it doesn’t mean I don’t want you by my side.”
I look down at where our hands had just connected. “I want to be by your side too. I just... I don’t know how to do this.”
“Do what?”
“This.” I gesture between us. “Whatever this is. We kissed, and then you disappeared into meetings. And now we’re going to school where everyone already thinks I’m using you for clout, and…”
“Hey.” He waits until I look at him. “Saturday night was real. The kiss was real. Me wanting you there was real.”
“But yesterday…”
“Yesterday sucked,” he admits. “I hated being stuck in those meetings when all I wanted was to talk to you about the performance.”
Something in my chest loosens. “Really?”
“Really.” He reaches for my hand again, more carefully this time. “Can we just... try to get through today? Together?”
I look at his hand, and then at his face. The weak smile is gone, replaced with something more earnest.
“Together,” I echo, and this time when our fingers intertwine, there’s a spark.
“Thank you,” he says quietly. “For Saturday. For the photos. For being there.”
