Welcome To The Media (Dylmas AU)

15. Shots Fired

Dylan's pov

"Has fame gone to your head yet?"

Tyler's voice buzzed through my headphones, and I smiled, instantly comforted by his familiar voice. "Hi to you too, Tyler Posey," I replied, rolling my eyes in exasperation.

Tyler faux-squealed through our skype call, forcing me to pull out an earbud with his sudden loudness. I raised an eyebrow at him through our fuzzy connection, silently asking why he found it necessary to give me a heart attack. In response, he started fanning himself with his hand, saying in mock excitement, "Oh my gosh! A real life celebrity knows my name!"

I offered a cheeky grin, and then without hesitating, I ended the skype call on him.

I waited a few moments, glancing around the small coffee shop in which I sat. It was a cute, family-run bakery-type thing, with potted plants and creepy pictures of cats hung around the walls. I took a cautious sip of my coffee, dipping my tongue in slowly to test if it was still too hot.

The skype call began to ring in my headphones again, and I immediately accepted Tyler's call. When his picture popped up, he looked severely unamused by my response to his teasing. Then he deadpanned, "Okay, just because you're a celebrity now does not mean you can hang up on me, bitch."

I smiled cheerily, clicking the "end call" button again.

This time Tyler called back immediately, grumbling under his breath about "actors gone rogue". I giggled in my seat, again sipping my drink. I watched him fidget with something to his right, before the lights flew on behind him.

"So, what did Thomas do now?" was the first thing Tyler asked. The smile on my face immediately dropped as I gaped at my best friend in surprise.

"Wait--how did you--what?" I stuttered.

Tyler rolled his eyes. "It's not that hard to figure out, Dylan. You've called twice in the past two weeks, once to vent about how dreadful the poor bloke is, once to complain about the awful words he said at the restaurant."

My mouth fell even wider, "I wasn't complaining--"

"Keep tellin' yourself that, Mr. Denial." Tyler rotated in his chair, obviously content to just be able to talk to me. I relaxed back against my own seat, slightly peeved at my best friend (mostly because he was right). Then he added in afterthought, "But you have the distracted-by-Thomas' face on, again."

I shook my head, but chose not to reply. "Well, anyways," I began, annunciating the last word to show I was moving on, "Thomas apologized to me."

Tyler froze in his seat. He turned towards me slowly, like the villain in a horror movie facing his victim. "Repeat that, please. There was too much bullshit in that sentence for me to understand it."

"I'm dead serious, man!" I said loudly. I glanced up to see if anyone was bothered by my exclamation, before I turned back to the screen. "He apologized, and I accepted it."

"Okay, hold up." Tyler sat up in his seat. His hand raked over the black stubble protruding from his chin, and he looked deep in thought as he said, "Thomas Sangster, the 'Bad-Boy-Thomas-Sangster-That-Never-Apologizes-For-Anything' said sorry?"

I nodded, and Tyler shook his head in disbelief. "What the hell? Why? Did he give you a bad blowjob or somethi--"

"Tyler!" I exclaimed, cutting him off. "No!"

My face was beet red and I was sure Tyler noticed, but at least he didn't say anything. "Then what happened?"

I launched into the story, intentionally keeping my voice low. I knew I wasn't exactly famous enough to have people recording my every move, especially in the middle of nowhere of Louisiana, but I still wanted to be cautious. The last thing I wanted for both Thomas and myself was for this to get out to the press, where the story of our hatred would blow up in a matter of days. Just by logging onto Twitter I could tell people already knew there was something going on between us, though most thought it to be some type of secret romantic relationship. As if.