Five Stars (Sampler)

"You're insured, right?"

A message flashed across the screen:

wer r u

Huh. Typical Sam. Couldn't even be bothered to spell his words correctly. She pulled the hand brake up, her foot still on the brake as she safely parked in the spot.

Another ding from her phone made her look down:

tessa

Wow. What a drama king. Just because he was a famous singer now. Tessa unbuckled her seat belt, grabbed her bag, and bolted out the door.

Sam hadn't always been Sam. He was Samuel. Sam-Sam, when they were younger. Sam was his cool name. His stage name, so to speak. Three years ago, he debuted as a member of the boy group LuvByte. It was a great moment for him and their small hometown, him being their very first celebrity and all. He left school at fourteen to start his training and workshops—which, frankly, Tessa found ridiculous at the time, because they were in the middle of the school year, and quitting to become a singer felt too... unrealistic. Somewhat delusional. Really risky.

She told him all of this, of course. Because she was convinced that he was really being stupid. He was just starting to turn his grades around, and she knew he was smart, but to quit even before the school year ended?

Fast-forward to ten years: Now she was a college graduate with an entry-level job at a local bank and he's... this hoodie-wearing, cap-wearing, dark-sunglasses-wearing weirdo standing in front of the bus terminal, trying too hard not to stand out.

Obviously, he failed at that, 'cause nobody wore shades here unless they were tourists. But he wouldn't know that now, because he was, actually, already a tourist. A decade had passed since Samuel Herras last came home.

Her breath caught at the thought of that—how strange it was to suddenly get a message from him asking her to help him set up a surprise for his parents' twenty-fifth wedding anniversary.

Yes, they were friends. Yes, they basically grew up together 'cause they were in each other's classes most of the time, but they also had that conversation toward the end, which Tessa mostly regretted and thought was the reason why they barely kept in touch.

But maybe she was just overthinking this all too much. He was, after all, very busy, and very much a celebrity. Of course he would have zero time to catch up with people he used to know.

Tessa ran up to him, and she was surprised at how easily he spotted her. His mouth opened as if ready to scold her for being fifteen minutes late.

"Zip it," she started, holding her hand up, showing him her car keys proudly. "I finally drove myself out here. First time on my own."

He looked down at the keys. "Were you driving a hearse?"

She stepped back, fingers closing in on her keys before she hid it in her back pocket. "I couldn't find a parking space. I don't know how to parallel park."

He let out a smile, and the sun seemed to shine brighter. Totally weird. Maybe she needed those shades instead.

Tessa looked away, pointing at the general direction of where she parked her car. "Let's get out of here. It won't be long 'til your surprise is ruined."

"What? Why?" He caught up to her pretty fast when she started to walk. He was basically striding, and in a few steps, she was the one who needed to catch up with him. "You didn't tell anyone, did you?"

"No, but people talk here. Pretty sure somebody's already spotted you."

"You think they recognized me?"

Tessa stopped, turned around, and gave him a confused look. "You really thought nobody would recognize you if you covered your head twice?"

Sam shrugged, and the way he towered over her made her feel... suddenly tiny.

Tessa winced. "Just take off one thing. I'm already sweating just by looking at you."

It was almost summer too, 34 degrees Celsius outside, and this man could still wear a hoodie. He pushed the hood off his face and looked back at her expectantly.

Someone gasped nearby.

Okay. Tessa froze. Maybe she had underestimated Sam's celebrity status. Then again, Sam had always had this effect. She remembered that girls would stop in the school hallways to watch him pass by, and he hadn't been hard to miss. He was already a bit taller than most boys in their class, but a bit bigger then. His body now seemed leaner—toned—but his demeanor hadn't changed. Sam had always been more or less the same: He stood like the space he occupied mattered.

"Where to?"

She decided to just march straight into her dad's old Volkswagen, the same one they'd had in the family for years. Her dad had finally upgraded to a newer sedan, but he made her use their old car to practice manual driving. She was getting pretty confident with driving automatic, but her father insisted that it was still better for her to learn manual.

"Holy shit, it's still here!" Sam hollered.

"Yep."

"That's awesome," Sam said, throwing his bag onto the backseat. "We always said we'd drive this one."

Tessa smiled at that, remembering as well. "Dreams do come true."

No kidding, she thought. If anyone's dreams had come true here, it was Sam's. And it was a big dream she didn't even believe he'd reach.

She got in the car and instantly felt the pressure of having a passenger that wasn't her father or a driving instructor. She was driving Sam, who some people consider as Very Important. His life was in her hands, so to speak, and she paused before turning the ignition.

He was too big for this car now, maybe literally and figuratively. His presence was a little too overwhelming in a confined space, and he smelled like fresh soap and something weirdly comforting, like the blankets you kept in storage. She shook her head to focus on other things besides him.

His eyebrows raised expectantly, mouth slightly open, as if waiting for her to start.

"You're insured, right?" Tessa asked.

He rolled his eyes, then laughed, which made her recognize the boy who used to sit next to her in class. Sam who still laughed with his shoulders, and not Sam the VIP, 1/7 of the boy group LuvByte, who sometimes trended on Twitter for doing something as mundane as showing his armpits (they were very smooth, or maybe just Photoshopped).

This was Sam-Sam, how they teasingly and lovingly called him then. He disliked taking notes, got nagged for forgetting to bring his books, and would ever-so-softly answer math equations under his breath but wouldn't dare raise his hand.

"Just take me home, Tessa."

** This is a pre-order sample for "Five Stars."  Available on Amazon, Smashwords, Apple Books, Barnes & Noble, Kobo and Scribd on August 16, 2021. **