reputation | sm {slow updates}

T W O

"He was coming to talk to you."

"I really have a hard time believing that, Miranda." I turn my head to look at her. We're both laying on her giant king bed at her parents' house, our feet in opposite directions, heads together in the middle.

I watch her upside down mouth move as she says, "Why else would he have come down into the crowd like that?"

"I don't know," I say, turning my head to look up at the ceiling. "But I can't allow myself to think it was for me. I'll go crazy."

"He obviously remembers you, Lane," Miranda says, and for the first time I feel like she's finally buying into all of my crazy talk. All of the stories about when Shawn and I used to live in the same small town in Ontario. I turn to look at her again, and I meet her deep blue eyes.

"You think?"

"I do." Her mouth curves into a smile. "I really do."

I let out a huge sigh, sitting up. "But does it even matter if he does?" I turn around to see Miranda sitting up as well. "He's gone now. On his way to his next tour date. I'll probably never see him again."

"You don't know that," she says, a smirk playing on her lips. "He could be out there looking for you right now."

I roll my eyes, trying not to get my hopes up. "As if."

•••

Shawn

"Are you sure it's her?"

"Dude, look at the picture I sent you. It's her." I scroll back through my messages with Ben, searching for the photo. I open it for probably the tenth time this morning. There she is, her dirty blond hair bleached by the California sun, her wide smile showing off her bright white teeth. Her green eyes shining with a happiness that I can only imagine comes from living in perfect LA weather all year round. Her long arms are out at her sides, her hair and floral dress blowing in the wind.

"Shawn, you still there?" Ben's voice comes flooding from speaker phone, pulling me out of my thoughts.

"Yeah, sorry." I take another couple seconds to stare at the photo, committing Alayna's beautiful smile into my memory. I close out of the photo and take my phone off speaker. "It's really her, eh?"

"It's really her. I told you she and Bekah used to be best friends. I have access to everything. Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, even Facebook." I can hear the pride in his voice.

"You're Facebook friends with her?!" I ask, shocked. I mean I guess she was a few years older than us so she probably actually uses Facebook.

"Nah, man," I hear Ben's laugh on the other end of the phone. "I don't use my Facebook! I hacked Bekah's." Ah. That sounds more like Ben.

"I see." I smile. I miss sitting in his bedroom at 2 AM watching him hack anything and everything—just for fun.

"It wasn't that hard," he says, and I can almost see him shrug. "She has the same password for everything."

"Doesn't everyone?" I ask. I start to laugh but Ben's tone makes me stop short.

"Shawn, you have to be kidding me!" I have to pull my phone away from my ear his voice is so loud.

"Uh," I start. I can practically hear him rolling his eyes.

"Dude, you are too famous to use the same password for everything! If someone gets ahold of just one password, they can take down your entire online presence. Ruin your reputation! Shawn, swear to me you're going to change your passwords!"

"Okay, okay, I swear," I tell him, making a mental note to change my passwords later today. "Listen, man, it was so great to talk to you, but I gotta go," I say, watching the world slow down as the bus pulls up behind our hotel in San Diego.

"You too, man," Ben says. "Let me know if you need any more help with the ladies." I feel my face break into a smile.

"Trust me, I will."

•••

Later that day I'm lying on my bed in my hotel room staring at the same picture of Alayna, for probably the fiftieth time today. I just can't get her out of my mind. I start typing a message to Ben:

"hey, can u give me alayna's insta & twitter handles?"

He replies almost immediately.

"i mean, sure, but she's private on everything. so no stalking for u"

I sigh, unsure of what to do. If I follow her, my fans will see that (they see everything) and wonder who she is. It also means that she'd know I noticed her, and I don't know if I want that. I mean she probably still sees me as the little sixth grader I was when she moved. If she even remembers me. There's no way she could feel the same way about me as I feel about her.

Absolutely not.

•••

Alayna

"We should have just gotten tickets for San Diego too and made a road trip out of it." I turn to see Miranda looking over my shoulder as I stare at Shawn's latest Instagram photo of him onstage at the LA show.

"Now who's the stalker?" I ask, grinning at her.

"I'm just saying," she pauses, shrugging slightly, "it would've been fun."

"It would've been crazy." I narrow my eyes at her.

"But fun." She raises her eyebrows.

"Ugh," I sigh, throwing myself back onto her bed. "This is ridiculous. I can't live like this anymore! We have to get out of here and do something!"

"You could go to class," Miranda suggests.

"Shit," I mutter, sitting up. "What day is it?"

"Friday."

"Dammit, I have math lab today," I say, regretting my decision to sign up for a Friday class. "What time is it?"

"11:37."

"Dammit it, Miranda, it starts at noon! And it takes at least 20 minutes to get to campus. Let's go!"

I push myself off of the bed and grab my purse off the desk. It's only the second week of classes and I'm already a mess.

"You so owe me for this," Miranda groans, grabbing her keys off her nightstand.

"Lunch after class?" I grin.

"Your treat." She sarcastically returns my smile.

I love my best friend.

—————
hola hola!

i hope you guys enjoyed this chapter! i'm surprised by the attention this has gotten already—it had like 10 reads 20 mins after i posted the first chapter! that's crazy to me because i feel like my stories always take FOREVER to take off. so thanks. :)

i also wanna take this time to say that i have absolutely no consistent upload schedule in mind so sometimes there'll be slow updates and sometimes it'll be fast. we'll see what happens and how inspired i feel. as with all my stories, i write ahead a few chapters just so that i can kinda keep myself on track. so as soon as i have chapter 5 written, chapter 3 will go up. sorry it took me a million years to upload this chapter. i have no good excuse except for the fact that it took me forever to write chapter 4  lol

like i said—thanks so much for reading! i appreciate you.

xo
k