“Yeah.” Taylor sucked in a deep breath, looking up to meet my eyes. “Or I thought I did. I know now what I really want is… Milo, I don’t know how to say this, but I want— I mean, I’m hoping, that you will— mmph.”
I finished Taylor’s sentence for him, leaning up to press my lips against his. The warmth I’d felt in the cafeteria rushed through us, igniting instantly when we touched, Taylor pulling me toward him even as I wrapped my arms around his shoulders. Distantly, my ears registered whoops, cheering and a scattering of applause, and I knew we’d been seen. I didn’t care.
In the gentleness of Taylor’s kiss, in the way his body had inclined toward mine as readily as if he knew what I wanted before I did, the way his mouth shifted into a smile even as he kissed me, I found the certainty I was looking for.
As a click that could only be that of a camera registered, I pulled back just far enough to whisper to Taylor, “I think you’re going to be front page news again.”
Taylor laughed, settling me against his chest as we began to dance again. “As long as you’re sharing the headline, I’m okay with that.”
****
Epilogue
“Hey,” Candice announced. “I’ve come to show you the damage.” She paused in our living room doorway. “Superman pajamas?”
I sat up so fast that I banged my elbow on the coffee table. “Candice? What are you doing here?”
“I just told you.” She sat down on the sofa, putting her laptop on our coffee table. “Why so sleepy? Your mom said you’d been awake hours.”
“Mom!” It wasn’t that I was sleepy, exactly. I’d had the best night of my entire life. Part of me was still riding that high. I wasn’t over the moon; I was on another planet entirely.
“Don’t bother her,” Candice said. She had a YouTube video already keyed up. “Like I said, you have to see this.”
The video needed a moment to buffer. I frowned at the title. “All You Need… Jet Carmichael Premiere?” All You Need to Know About Hollywood was one of my favorite opinion shows— usually. I enjoyed the hosts’ sense of humor and style of delivery, but when the topic was Taylor…
“Tonight’s breaking news,” the female host announced. “Contrary to all expectations, Jet showed up to the premier of Boston 1770 and even talked to the Press!”
“Even more of a surprise— the kid can act. We weren’t part of the audience, but critics are already praising his performance.”
“There will be many journalists today who owe Jet an apology. Including you, Graham.”
Graham grinned roguishly. “In my defense, a mental hospital and your typical American high school are not entirely dissimilar. Still, we think we’ve solved the mystery of Jet Carmichael’s behavior, don’t we, Jean.”
Jean nodded. “Jet Carmichael is an ordinary teenager.”
“Our evidence? Like any other kid his age, Jet ditched his parents at the earliest opportunity. Here they are, arriving at the premier without him.”
A clip played. Sir Alan unwillingly paused while his wife, glamorously beautiful as ever, laughed at the camera. “You know boys,” she said. “We’re not allowed to sit with him. He’s afraid we’ll embarrass him in front of his friends.”
“There you go!” crowed the male host. “How much more teenage does it get?”
“As it turns out, this much more teenage.” A new clip started playing. Fern, Declan and I stuck as closely to Taylor as we could, walking down the red carpet in our formal clothes. “Instead of arriving with his costars, his famous parents or his A-list friends, Taylor shows up with his high school classmates.”
Declan’s attitude managed to suggest that this was not the only time he intended to be making a red carpet appearance, but Fern and I were obviously uncertain.
I had a sudden feeling of foreboding and looked up to find Candice was watching me closely.
“And Jet’s classmates?” There was a smug note in the host’s voice.
“Jet!” In the red-carpet clip, a journalist called out loudly. “Aren’t you going to introduce your posse?”
Jet looked as though he would have liked to keep walking. He was propelling me down the carpet as quickly as possible with his hands on my shoulders, but Fern paused.
“It’d be rude to ignore him—”
Reluctantly Taylor turned to the microphone thrust at him, a chain reaction of flashes starting behind him. “I don’t have a posse. These are my friends. Declan—” Declan preened “—is the president of the Bernhardt drama club. This is Fern, junior vice president. And Milo, bane of my existence.”
The journalist started on another question, but the clip paused.
“So,” Jean started. “Not only does Jet Carmichael have friends—”
“But his friends are comedic gold,” Graham finished. “We could do our entire show just on the faces that the last kid makes. Here’s the clip again. Make sure you watch his face.”
“—President of the Bernhardt drama club—”
“There! What is that expression?”
“Taylor invited Lily,” I grumbled. “But she had that exhibition. We didn’t want to invite Declan but apparently he whined to Fern and she felt sorry for him.”
Candice snorted. “That’s not even the best bit.”
At the same time, the host said, “It gets better. Watch what happens as the interview continues.”
Taylor left his arm draped over my shoulder as he launched into a description of his struggles with his character. I had my arms folded across my chest, clearly resenting Taylor’s introduction of me.
“Jet shifts his hand— where could it have gone?”
Jet had casually dropped his arm from my shoulder. A second later, shock flickered across my face, and I craned my neck to look behind me. When I turned back, I was pink. If Taylor had noticed any change in my expression, he gave no indication of it, continuing the interview smoothly.
“Turns out, that like any teenager, Jet enjoys playing jokes on his friends.”
“I’m not so sure that was a joke,” the female host said. “When the premier ended, Jet was seen holding hands with—” She looked down at the paper in front of her. “Milo Markopoulos.”
I put my face in my hands. “How much more of this is there?”
“And as Jet’s friends, what was your opinion of the movie?”
“It was all right—” Declan started.
Fern elbowed him. “It was better than all right! It was great— you were great, Jet. You don’t have to be embarrassed about it.”
“Was he embarrassed?” the journalist asked.
Taylor started. “I wasn’t—”
“Why did you cover my eyes if you weren’t embarrassed?” It was weird watching me on the small screen.
Taylor’s cool command of himself flickered for a second. “That was—”
“He didn’t want Milo to see the kissing scene.” Declan was as superior as usual. “That’s all it was.”
“There was a kissing scene?”
Fern was a similar shade of pink to her dress. “It’s not how you expect to see your friends! I didn’t know where to look.”
“It’s just acting,” Declan said. “I know that in our production of—”
“Why wasn’t I allowed to see you kissing people?”
Taylor put his hands on my shoulder again, steering me away from the journalists. “The problem is that when people get kissed around you, stories happen—”
“There you go!” The YouTube video returned to the hosts. The male host leaned across the desk. “Typical teenager who doesn’t want his friends to laugh at him or blossoming romance? Let us know what you think by using the hash tag AllYouNeed on Twitter—”
Candice closed the laptop. “Well? What is your journalistic opinion?”
“Shut up.” As soon as we’d arrived at the after-party, Taylor had taken me aside so that we could discuss my opinion on him kissing people. There had not been much actual discussion, but I’d been distracte
d enough to entirely forget about the incident until now. “Trust the media to get things entirely wrong.”
“Can I quote you on that?”
I stuck my tongue out at Candice. The paper was on hiatus over the winter break, we both knew that. All the same…
If I told the story, I could make sure it was told right.
“Come to think of it… It would make an excellent story.”
Candice snorted a second time as she picked up her laptop. “I’m not printing it.”
I didn’t pay her any attention, already reaching for a pen.
###
Acknowledgements
Any DRitC story is a team effort, and The Biggest Scoop was no different! Josephine got the ball rolling with her incredibly fun prompt, and kept it rolling through her encouragement on the Goodreads forums! My friends Julia, Kamilah and Zenia assured me that what I wrote made sense and answered my questions about American high school life. K.C. Faelan got me through the first three chapters, while Sam very ably helped me turn my polished draft into something I could happily submit. Raevyn worked her editing magic, and the formatting and proofing team applied the final polishing touches. The cover comes courtesy of the extremely talented Bree Archer who spent a lot of time working on something that would do justice to Josephine’s prompt picture. Thank you, everyone! Without you, this story would never have been written!
I also want to thank Christie for giving me the chance to write this story. I imagine that giving up this prompt was a really hard decision, and I hope that someday we get to learn what your vision for these boys was.
Author Bio
I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my BA, but I knew one thing: I was no way, definitely, absolutely not going to teach. Never. Then I tried it. That was eleven years ago, now, and I am still happily teaching English. I live in a tiny, tiny town in rural Japan with students who make Milo look restrained.
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