Calling Lilah the younger sister of Take Five seemed a little weird since her brother was only one-fifth of the band but I just smiled and nodded regardless.
“How did you two meet?” the girl on the right asked, leaning in. “Was it through the bands?”
“Actually, we met here,” Lilah said. “At Hartwell.”
The girl’s face fell at that as if she’d concocted her own version of events in her mind, so I added, “But we’ve spent some extra time together because of the bands. Concerts, a coupleaward shows, hiding in a store when too many people were following us…” I winked at Lilah and she glared back probably remembering the way I’d hit her in the face that day.
The girls squealed over us for a couple more minutes before walking off, telling Lilah they’d come by her room tonight. As soon as they were out of sight, I pulled my hand out of Lilah’s again, trying not to show her how cold it felt without her.
“So answer me this,” I said, “why did Luca leave his clothes in your room last time he was here?”
Lilah snorted. “He didn’t. They’re all clean clothes he’s been seeing wearing out at least once. I steal them from his closet and spray them with his cologne so they think it’s authentic.” She smiled at me as I gaped at her. “Steal some of your brothers’ clothes and I’ll help spread the word you’re doing the same. Trust me, you can make a killing.”
“You’re an evil mastermind.”
She shrugged. “I view it as doing a service. They get something they want, I get something I want, and Luca doesn’t get his clothes ripped off his body when he visits. A win-win-win if you will.” She took a final bite of her waffles and stood up. “Now come on. Let’s go do something fun with our Saturday.”
CHAPTER 14
lilah
Ifone more person tried to “subtly” take a picture of us, I was going to lose my mind.
I’d been sitting outside of Heart’s Coffee with Tino for all of five minutes and at least three people had walked by pretending to scroll on their phones but angling the camera way too obviously in our direction.
“This is getting ridiculous,” I muttered, stabbing at the lid of my coffee cup with the stirring straw.
Tino didn’t look up from his phone. “What’s ridiculous? That you’ve read the same paragraph four times, or that that girl over there just used her reflection in the window as a mirror to take a photo of us?”
I glared. “You saw that too?”
“Oh, definitely.” He smirked, finally setting his phone down. “She didn’t even try to hide it. I wonder if she’s selling it to that sophomore for her blog about school events. What do you figure a photo of us is worth? A hundred, two hundr?—”
“Shut up.” I tried not to laugh, but it slipped out anyway. “It’s your fault for being so… photogenic.”
Tino raised an eyebrow. “Photogenic? Not handsome?”
“Don’t push it.”
He grinned, leaning back against the bench. “So what do we do?”
I frowned as I noticed another girl whip out her phone and point it in our direction. Maybe I should have been happier about this since it was what the fake relationship was for—to let people get used to the idea of Tino and me being together and get all this craziness out of their systems—but I felt like an animal at the zoo. I’d never understood how Luca could live with the attention from his fame like this.
“What can we do?” I asked. “It’s not like they’ll all stop taking photos just because we asked nicely. And I’m not sure we really want them to anyway, right?”
Tino thought it over for a minute. “We don’t want it to stop altogether, I guess. But maybe we can control it a little more.”
I slowly put my coffee cup down, offering him my full attention. “What do you mean?”
“Well…” He tapped his legs as he thought. “They want photos of us, right? So why make them take the photos when we could take them ourselves? That way they’ll actually look good instead of the cartoonishly terrible way we’ll look in the photo of a reflection, and everyone would be more excited about it, right?”
I sighed and leaned back against the bench. “That’s true. But it also sounds like an insane amount of effort.”
“I think it sounds like fun.”
“So your definition of fun involves cameras and pretending to be in love?”
He shot me a look, half-amused, half-serious. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
