Getting over your first crush seems impossible - especially when he's the star of the world's biggest movie franchise.
***
Jess Wheeler is happily single and perfectly content with her simple life in Hemlock Landing, South Carolina, where all she kn...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
"Stop by the HistoricMagnolia Place Southern Bed and Breakfast! Free wi-fi and meals included!" My voice is easily swallowed by the crowd of pre-teen girls that I seem to have found myself squashed in between, and for the fiftieth time this hour I wonder what the hell I did wrong for my life to end up at this point. Even the pamphlets clutched in my fists are starting to disintegrate from my sweat. Lovely.
At least I fought my way over to a decent spot by the fountain in the middle of the town square before the crowds got too bad, which offers me a little bit of shade courtesy of an overgrown oak tree. My dreams of sitting on the edge and resting my legs for a little while crashes and burns, though, as people climb onto it in hopes of getting a better view. I let out a self-suffering sigh and don't even bother to keep my expression pleasant anymore as I take out my phone and text Teresa.
Me: help I'm literally in hell. Why is it so hot
Me: i hope you think of me when ur eating cake in air conditioning 😭
It takes a few seconds for her to respond.
Teresa: noooooo I'm so sorry. Currently crying for you in my cake.
Teresa: Has it started yet?
Me: nope, still waiting. It's taking forever
Teresa: I thought the parade stepped off at noon
Me: I thought so too :/
Two minutes go by where Teresa doesn't respond, and as I put my phone away I overhear a familiar nasally, Southern accent that sends dread flooding through my bloodstream. I recognize it from my nightmares, because the voice belongs to Vivian Connor, otherwise known as the Governor of Grossland (or The Wicked Witch of the Southeast). Needless to say, Teresa and I have spent way too long coming up with names for her that adequately convey her dreadful personality.
Vivian's blonde Karen-cut bobs in and out of the crowd of mostly teen girls, a clipboard clutched in her manicured hands as she continues to bark at everyone. It's hard to imagine that she and Bay are related at all; the only thing they seem to have in common are their piercing blue eyes and shared knack of turning my life into a living hell.
"Back up, back up! Get behind the barriers!" A girl wearing a tie-die shirt that says "Bay's Bae" nearly falls on her ass as Vivian forcefully clears a path through the army of fangirls in front of me. I do everything in my power to shrink down, but apparently I'm not invisible enough because her eyes instantly latch onto me like a shark scenting blood in the water.
Of. Fucking. Course.
"Jess Wheeler!!" She squawks, causing everyone in a fifty foot radius to pivot and stare at me as though I'm the celebrity they're waiting to see. But once they realize that I'm just a freckly ginger girl with way too much sweat on her face, they go back to their work of anxiously awaiting Bay's arrival.
