Starbird

Chapter 8

As they all left the cafeteria, I could slowly feel the blush fade from my cheeks, but the heart hammering resonated in my ears. Perhaps Liam did have some effect on my decision. I mean, ultimately, the decision was my own and I did start thinking Green Goblin before that whole thing, but the second Liam put his hand on mine, I thought I was about to die. I barely knew him and here he was making me react like a fool. There were very clear reasons why I avoided all of James’ celebrity friends before and being stupid around the cute ones was one of the top ones. I rested my elbows on the table as I thought this whole situation through. Liam and I didn’t really know each other. Sure, I stalked him since I was little, but we weren’t on some personal, friendship level. Placing my chin in the palm of my hand, I shrugged off the feeling Liam left me with. He was just teasing, after all. That’s what movie stars liked to do! They teased their fans endlessly, James told me all about how he would make a fan’s day by doing something slightly flirty and then come home and laugh about their reactions with me. Then he’d swear me to secrecy so the media wouldn’t start calling him names. Oh James, you silly older brother.

“Hey Cam, you ready?” I turned to see my mom with Finch.

“Yeah, where we going now?” I got up and pushed my chair back in while taking a final bite of my food.

“Tour time! We’ll show you the entire set and you’ll get to meet some people!” Lisa spoke in her bright voice and it almost hurt my ears. She began walking out, Mom and I trailing behind her.

“So-o. Cammie.” Uh-oh. I knew that tone. That was the I-saw-you-talking-with-a-boy tone and it typically didn’t lead to anything good.

“Yes mother?”

“What were you and the boys talking about at lunch? Gemma and Ava didn’t seem to be doing a lot of talking, however you and the boys seemed very animated.” I waved my hand, dismissively.

“It was nothing.” I said. “Kind of stupid, actually.” Please don’t ask more about it, I begged.

“Then you won’t mind telling me what it was about.” I gave my mom an are-you-serious look, while she smiled innocently.

“It was about what makes a good villain. You know, because they’re in a movie... with a villain... and they wanted to see if... he was a good one.” My words weren’t confident enough to make Mom believe me as I stuttered along the lie. “It was a very intelligent conversation.” I tried to justify it.

“Mmhmm, sure.”

“Fine! We were talking about comic book villains! Happy?” She tried to tuck her lips in to keep from smiling in amusement, but it didn’t exactly work out.

“Comic book villains? Really?” I could feel my cheeks start flaming in embarrassment. “Yes, Cam, that sounds very intelligent.”

“You can make any conversation intelligent if you argue certain points.” I defended and as Mom was about to come back with a witty reply, Lisa stood in front of us and spread her arms out wide.

“This is the costume trailer! Here we keep all of the costumes in proper order and...” Lisa’s voice started drifting off about pointless facts I’m sure anyone would know. Of course they keep the costumes in the costume trailer, where else would they be?

But that’s what we did for the next hour. In and out of all sorts of trailers where the crew workers inside would give us a strange look as Lisa would blabber on about how important that role was and pointless facts of how many people go through that department. Perhaps on a day where I didn’t meet a certain hot, British boy, I would be acting more interested and these facts she was telling us probably were at least a little bit fascinating! But I just kept on mulling on the possibility of running into Liam. And I really, really wanted to run into him again. Maybe if I saw him several times in one day, my fangirling would die down and I would come to the realization that he’s a regular young adult. A very good-looking young adult, sure, but he definitely acts like a flirty college senior. However that was another thing that added into his attraction! He didn’t act like some hot shot actor, he acted like a regular person.