LEXIE HOWARD
Lexie was on her phone as chaos filled her room.
She was scrolling through social media as the world went mad at the insinuation of a possible collab between Remus and Billie Eilish.
She had known that the two of them were talking to each other, but even she did not know that he had gone to meet her.
The revelation had come from the internet, where Billie had posted a picture of him, sitting beside her brother, covering half of his face with a stack of UNO cards as the trio clearly enjoyed their time.
The room behind them was a mess, with empty bottles of soda and fast food boxes visible in the back.
They had made no mention of a collab, but only this small meet-up had been enough to give birth to a whole slew of rumors.
Some were expecting a collab already, while others spoke of a romantic relationship.
Remus himself had made a post about it, and in it he was using his fingers to tap Billie’s forehead, and while she did not know what the reference was about herself, the internet had taken only a second to figure it out.
‘DuckFace213: Is that a Naruto reference!’
‘PervySAGELY: That is definitely an Itachi reference!
Be careful, Billie.
he might slaughter your family!’
‘AnimeMaster: Damn, I did not know he was into anime!’
Entire threads had sprung up with a stream of questions, and yet Remus was happy to ignore them all.
She was busy scrolling through her phone when suddenly someone grabbed it out of her hand.
“HEY!” she screamed and tried to grab it back.
“Where the hell are you?” Maddie now held her phone in her hands, and the girl gang had come together once more to get ready for the festival in the evening.
“Give it back,” Lexie insisted.
“I will, after you have answered my question,” Maddie retorted, and she ground her teeth.
“What do you even wanna know?” She had an idea already what this was about.
“Tell me his type,” Maddie asked, and the thing about Maddie was that once she set her mind on something, she would not back down no matter what.
Previously, Remus had been able to duck her interest because of their relationship, but now everyone knew that he was single once more, and Maddie planned on taking full use of this moment.
“Why would I do that?” Lexie retorted angrily, and the dark-haired girl leaned forward and looked into her eyes.
“Because you owe me bitch!” Maddie began, as she threatened her.
“You lied to me about something, and I chose to let it go. Now you have to give back,” and Lexie did not know how that made sense at all, but to Maddie it did.
“I need answers, girl, and I need them right now,” and she did not know if she could break his trust like that.
“I don’t know,” Lexie answered, and Maddie’s eyes narrowed.
“Come on Lex, don’t force…”
“Maddie!” but Cassie finally came to her rescue.
“You promised to behave,” she reminded her, and the dark-haired girl sighed.
“Whatever,” and threw her phone back to her.
“As for Remus, his biggest thing is that he hates drama,” and for a second they had all overlooked the fact that Cassie had dated him before her and for much longer.
She probably knew all about him.
“Or at least that was how he was when we were dating,” and Kat chuckled from the side at this.
“Well, there goes your chance, Maddie,” she added, putting down the book as she teased her friend
“Because you, my friend, are all drama,” and Maddie gave the girl a glare, as she picked up a pillow and threw it at her.
“Shut up!” Maddie retorted before turning towards Cassie once more.
“What else?” she asked, and Cassie sifted through her closet while she answered her.
“He likes purple. He hates anything mustard colored. He likes his privacy. He likes cute more than sensual,” and that was some very accurate information, and Maddie walked up to her sister and grabbed her head.
“You are my hero. Bitch,” and the two chuckled at that.
“Wait, hold on. Shouldn’t you be focusing on Nate, Maddie?” Kat added once again, as she put her phone down.
“Well, that was before I learned about Remus being single again,” Maddie said, pointing towards her.
“You do know that he is leaving soon, right?” and he had stopped coming to the school already, and he was even going to give his SATs next week.
After that, he was going to move upstate to focus on his career.
“So, what!” Maddie added with a shrug.
“I am not asking him to marry me,” Maddie added as she walked up to Cassie’s closet and began moving through it, placing each dress against herself as she posed in the mirror.
“I am just looking for something exciting,” and she really doubted that she would succeed.
“Don’t mention that to him at all,” Cassie pointed out as she began to use the roller on her face.
“I am not an idiot,” Maddie added.
“Honestly, I don’t see why you’d do something like this. You and Nate are honestly the perfect couple,” added Kat, and they were.
The two of them were the proverbial perfect couple of high school, with Nate being the football captain and Maddie being the cheerleader squad captain.
“Ahh, maybe. But Nate’s being a baby about the whole thing with his father,” and by now the entire neighborhood knew of Cal Jacob’s disappearance, though the man had finally emerged out of his hiding hole to cause an even greater scandal.
“His parents are getting a divorce. What’s new? His father’s giving them more than half of the money from the sale of his business. Nate’s set for life, yet he refuses to grow up, and is being a baby about this,” Maddie complained, and she did not know what she was meant to say to that.
“I will deal with him once he’s back to his senses,” and with that she busied herself with preparations, and Lexie would like to make a note that the festival was set to begin in the evening and it was barely noon.
She rolled her eyes at their antics and busied herself with the phone again.
Remus had a social media profile as well, and yet he was far more reserved in its use and was usually restricted to at most one or two posts a day.
Luckily, he made a post just as she was about to do something, and this time it was a picture from his desk, with a pile of books and stationery.
He had added a crying emoji to the picture, and just like that the internet went mad once again.
She opened up their chat, and messaged him once again.
‘L: R u rly going to collab with Billie Eilish?’
‘R: Yup!’
He answered, as if it was really a normal thing to do, nervous, and perhaps it was for him.
Remus Bennet was nowhere near as famous as Billie Eilish yet, but he was famous enough already.
His songs still hovered in the top 30s on the Billboard charts, and one of them had still maintained its position in the top 10 for over three weeks now.
His streaming numbers were massive, and he was recording over a dozen million weekly streams on Spotify and other such platforms.
‘L: Any jitters about the performance tonight?’
‘R: Not really!
Though, do u have any idea how light systems work!’
And that was a strange question.
‘L: I know the basics.
Why?’
‘R: U mind helping Elliot and me with the stage prep then?’
‘L: Ofc, not.’
‘R: Cool.
I will pick you up at 3.
And Amy wants me to record the whole thing for some reason.
You up for it?’
‘L: Sure’
And so, she glanced at the clock again, and it was half past twelve.
She had an hour to spare, and decided to take a nap while her sister and her friends busied themselves with their own preparations.
She was ready at three and out the door even before the car honked.
“Yo, our cameraman is finally here,” Elliot said, and Elliot had the camera on already and was clearly making a recording.
“Hi,” she waved into the lens as she slid into the back of the car. Follow the newest chapters on g.com.
“Now the gang is finally complete,” Elliot added as he passed her the camera.
“Now, I must delegate these responsibilities to the most able member of our group,” Elliot added, and she picked it up and pointed it towards Remus.
“I can assure you, the people have no doubt about that,” and with that, they rode towards the fair’s location, while Remus and Elliot slowly explained the background of the event.
Remus had told him how the video making was his record label’s idea, and they encouraged artists to record their lives when they were busy making an album so that they could use the footage later to make a montage, or a film-esque retelling of how the album came to be.
It was a cool concept, and while the studio had suggested a semi-professional director and cameraman, Remus had chosen to delegate the responsibility to her instead and wanted to do a whole written contract.
It was strange, and she was not expecting to land a professional job like this, but she was thankful nonetheless.
They reached the venue, and it was still empty.
This was more of a charity affair, so everything was kept to a minimum.
The organizers lacked the funds to hire a professional stage manager, and so they were going to do it themselves.
Fezco and Ashtray had come to help as well, and it took them nearly two hours to put the entire thing together.
By then the place was beginning to fill up.
“Thank you, everyone,” Remus said as he dusted off his hands.
“I have to get all this dirt off of me now,” and they all laughed at that as they walked backstage.
“So, when are we going to record the new songs?” Elliot asked, and it had been some time since he had put out new songs, and Lexie knew that he had three ready for the final recording.
“Saturday?” he asked, and Elliot nodded.
“That works,” and now he turned towards her.
“Can you make it?” Saturday worked for her as well.
“Of course,” and then Elliot began to brag.
“Well, I am going to go and change now,” Remus added and walked towards the special parking, while she turned towards Elliot.
“Remus mentioned that you were going to sign a deal with the label as well?” and in the hype for Remus, they had forgotten that he was not the only signing up with a record label.
Elliot, who was designated as the producer for all of Remus’s songs, was signing a deal himself.
“Yeah, it’s getting finalized. I will be signing up with Interscope as well,” and that was quite an achievement.
“Of course, my terms are nothing like Remus’,” Elliot added, and sensing the awkward silence, he turned towards her.
“I am not complaining,” he clarified.
“Honestly, he did most of the work on his songs himself. I barely did anything, and yet he credited me as the producer,” but it did not matter.
“Now he is even helping me write a song of my own,” Elliot added.
“You are going to do a song,” she asked, and Elliot nodded.
“Why do you sound surprised?” he asked, and she was not.
“I will have you know that I have been a singer longer than Remus,” and she doubted this, as they began to walk through the fair.
The place had begun to fill up now, and the lights had been turned on.
There were games, food shops, and a dozen other things for the people to enjoy.
Remus’s show was going to be the closing act of the evening, and as they were roaming through the place, they spotted him again.
“Is that Remus?” she asked, and he was standing beside a family, greeting them.
“I have seen that man before, but I can’t place him yet,” and the man was tall and had a squarish face.
There was a woman beside him, who was clearly his wife, given their matching bands, and then two girls.
One of them was obviously their daughter, and the other one was a redhead.
By now, they had walked up to him.
“Hey, man,” Elliot called out, and as Remus turned to face them, she stilled as she saw his hand, or more importantly, what was in it.
“Is that a braw?” Elliot screamed, and Remus finally realized the awkward situation, and how it looked and looked up at them with sheer panic.
“This is not what it looks like….”
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Have a fantastic day!