It Was A Whole Thing | Herophine

Publicity Stunt 5

My phone beeps and when I check who the message is from, my heart instantly skips a beat.

From Hero: Just got a call from Jamie. Guess I'll be seeing you in a week?

As much as I try to suppress the smile stretching the corners of my lips, I couldn't help it. I'm stupidly smiling down at my phone as I click on the message box to type in my reply.

To Hero: Unfortunately.

The bubbles pop up almost immediately meaning he's already typing in a response within a split second since my reply got sent.

From Hero: I can't wait to see you, cotton candy. I miss you.

I feel my cheeks flush from the nickname. Stop blushing, Jo! I force myself to make a straight face, erasing any trace of the stupid smile off my face and lock my phone, placing it on the table with it's screen facing down. I don't need to be distracted by him, especially not right now when I'm in the middle of a meeting with mine, Tom's and Zendaya's team with a representative from Marvel. Tom has already gone home to London but he's still attending via Zoom.

We are currently arranging the schedules for the promo in the coming months with consideration to the three of our schedules. Tom will be filming another movie in Canada three months from now, Zendaya will be back to filming Euphoria next month and I will be back in Atlanta to film After We Fell next week. So we're working around those schedules. Marvel wants us to do pre-promo before I need to fly out to Atlanta but since Tom can't make it on time, we've finally settled on doing a couple of Instagram takeovers for the Spiderman account. Zendaya and I will do some promo videos together which will be posted to the account while Tom will do an Instagram live twice-once with each Zendaya and I.

After that has been settled, Zendaya and her team are excused. We hug each other and promise to catch up after our promo shoot which I'm already looking forward to even if it means I'll most likely be third wheeling her and Jacob. I need this distraction since I've been feeling anxious about going back to the set of After. Tom has been very touchy about the subject as the start of filming draws in closer and closer and let's just say Hero's constant stream of messages and gifts have been confusing the living shit out of me.

Since that night Hero punched Tom in the face, I've been slowly growing more and more confused by the undeniable spark that Hero ignited inside me. And it doesn't help that he's been very persistent and consistent with his promise. I haven't heard anything negative about him, not a single girl being linked to him and his partying has definitely lessened. I would know because that guy tells me almost everything about his day without fail even with the lack of response on my part. He's been constantly sending me flowers and gifts and never fails to remind me of how much he's been missing me and all those soft and cheesy crap that I never thought he's actually capable of doing.

At first, I found it annoying as hell but as the weeks passed, I found myself actually looking forward to his daily messages checking in on me. I also found myself guilty of lying to my boyfriend, omitting all of these things from him and denying anything with regards to Hero. I feel horrible but I can't stop myself. And technically, I'm not cheating on him. I haven't seen Hero since that night and I don't reply to his messages... for the most part anyway, and if I ever do, it's always some short and snarky response before completely ignoring the exchange once again.

"Josephine, is that okay with you?" the rep from Marvel prompts, pulling me out from my jumbled thoughts.

"Wait, what? What are we talking about again? I'm sorry, I was just thinking about something else," I sheepishly say, throwing him an apologetic smile.

I get a glimpse of Tom on the screen and see his face set in a serious and neutral expression that I can't read. He's rarely ever like this, constantly being the happy pill to everyone else but recently, I've noticed him smiling a lot less, making lesser and lesser jokes and I kind of hate it. I miss the happy-go-lucky Tom. I miss my Tom.