The SecretBusterService status update: twenty minutes ago

Dear students of Califur High,

A new hashtag seems to be trending among the young girls of our town. Any educated guesses? (Too much to ask of you all, I know) #TommyandJerry Thomas O'Sullivan and Jeremy Jones have certainly captured the heart of young dames, but the comments tied to the hashtag do make you wonder if there is something else simmering between the two. Thomas tutoring Jeremy 'JJ' Jones hasn't gone unnoticed, but catching pizzas at Frank's diner (confirmed by multiple witnesses a few days ago) cannot be a teaching requirement, yes?

Until next time Lions,

Bond 007.

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"Man, I really don't want to go on a field trip, right now," I groaned, taking a seat in the middle of the school bus, right next to the window.

Stef nodded sympathetically behind me, well aware of the fact, since I had been complaining for the past hour.

Coach had just told us that Riverview High, our biggest sporting rival, had finally met with our sports department to fix a date for a friendly match between the two teams. I hadn't played basketball in a few weeks, what with the shadow work at the hospital and then tutoring Jeremy, and I felt entirely out of practice. This field trip could not have come at a worse time to distract me.

Sienna walked in behind us, ready to take the seat next to mine, but Jeremy beat her to it.

"O'Sullivan, we need to talk." He grunted, sitting down with a scowl on his face.

While usually that expression would make me immensely happy and satisfied, I had a suspicion about the thing he needed to talk about and it hindered my happiness.

Sienna pouted for a moment, before shrugging and taking a seat beside Stef instead.

"Tommy and Jerry partnering up for the trip, too?" She asked coyly, "Is this a part of the tutor gig then?"

I turned to ask her to impale herself on a thick rusted zinc rod, but Jeremy groaned beside me, cutting me off-

"See! This is what I wanted to talk about!" He ran his fingers through his hair, and my eyes involuntarily scanned his arms.

Why did he have such ripped arms all the time? Did he carry dumbbells in his bag at every given moment? It would make sense, I guess, considering he never really seemed to use a notebook in class and yet, his bag always looked heavy.

Not that I had noticed.

"What's there to talk about?" I asked. "It's a stupid app, nobody care-"

"Hey, Thomas!" The girl sitting in front of us interrupted. "I just think it's so brave that you and Jeremy are embracing your love openly. We stand in support." She held up her hand that was linked with another girl's. In turn, she pecked her on the cheek and they went back to their own cocoon.

"It's a stupid app! Who cares!"

Jeremy was disturbingly accurate with his imitation of my voice.

Sienna and Stef snorted behind us, thoroughly entertained.

"Bro, I cannot deal with this right now!" He somehow muttered through his clenched jaw. I wondered if he accidentally broke some teeth in there with that force.

Sienna, never one to stay silent when she most needed to, spoke up on my behalf, "Are you saying Thomas isn't date-worthy material?"

She nudged Stef, who added, "Thomas is one hundred percent swoon worthy. And I should know!"

He winked in my direction and I resisted the urge to smack his eyeballs right out of his head.

Jeremy stared at the two of us with his eyebrow raised, a peculiar expression replacing the early worry. He shook his head suddenly, shaking himself out of his own thoughts.

"What are we going to do about this?" He asked me, ignoring Sienna and Stef entirely, a decision I greatly admired and wholeheartedly supported. "This isn't good for my reputation!"

"Are there any good aspects to your reputation, anyway?" I countered, feeling annoyed. Sienna's words (Damn you, Perez!) had hit home. I felt offended that I was considered 'bad for reputation', even if it was Jeremy's reputation- specially if it was his reputation.

If I was bad rep for him, it meant I was doing everything right in my life. And yet, I felt offended at his reaction of being linked with me in any manner. And then I felt angry at myself for feeling offended about something so trivial and irrelevant.

I didn't want to be linked with Jeremy, either. But it had nothing to do with that stupid app, that, at least I, did not care about, and everything to do with Jeremy himself.

I had better taste than that, even in men.

Taste in men? What am I even thinking?

Jeremy groaned beside me, "Dude, I am a popular football player. I have an image to uphold."

"It's 2023," Stef said, "Nobody cares about being gay anymore. People quite literally have more important things to spend time over than waste it being homophobic to school children."

"Man, I wish I could live in your strawberry-tinted world," Jeremy retorted, narrowing his eyes at all of us.

Sienna saved the situation from turning ugly, "Okay let's all relax for a bit, yeah?"

She turned to handle Stef first, "Straight, closeted, jock or nerd, everyone has a right to control their own narrative, so drop it."

"And if it means so much, tell people that Tom has been trying to set you up with me. That should put people off your back for a bit and you can still meet up with Tom without all this reputation talk." She scrunched up her nose, "Loads of guys eat together at the diner, why are you picked off like that?"

The answer to that question came in the form of another status update, this time-with a photograph of Jeremy and I. It wasn't very clear and I recognised the angle. It was a shot of the two of us sitting in the car with Daisy. It was clicked during the time that we had been waiting for the rest of Daisy's friends to leave.

I had a scowl on my face in the picture, intensely glaring at Jones, while he was laughing without any inhibitions, staring back at me, with what looked like affection. Daisy, who had originally been the source of the joke, and the recipient of said affection, was not visible in that angle.

The joke had been at my expense of course, but this picture showed none of the backstory.

Jeremy's hand, which he had raised then to high five Daisy, looked like it was going down to caress and cajole me into not scowling any longer.

No one would have read so much into it, had it not been for the hashtags, caption and comments attached to it.

Those middle-school girls had started writing fan-fiction about us!

Jeremy turned in his seat entirely, face to face with Sienna and said, "Kiss me."

Now, a normal person would have been affronted and would have probably slapped him, but this was Sienna. She despised normal things with a burning passion.

She shrugged and leaned in, as Jeremy pulled out his phone and handed it to me, "Click a picture."

I was too stunned to act, but their kiss drew the attention of quite a few people, including Jeremy's football friends, who hollered at the display, and clicked his picture on his behalf. I threw his phone back at his lap.

"What just happened?" I asked Stef, who stared back at me with equal amount of confusions, but also some wonder. The wonder on his face brought me back to reality.

"Okay, Romeo," I grumbled, pulling Jeremy away from Sienna.

I was starting to feel uncomfortable about just how closely he was involving himself with the people I cared about.

And this kiss was highly unnecessary.

Jeremy eyed me curiously, and I shoved all my feelings aside, raising an eyebrow, "Happy now?"

He looked like he wanted to say something but he thought better and simply nodded.

The bus lurched to a start, and Jeremy got up, exchanging his seat with Stef's. The entire way, Sienna and Jeremy tested each other with dark humour that made Stef squirm in his seat.

"My family was debating to cremate or bury my grandmother," Jeremy tried, "In the end, we decided to let her live."

Sienna cackled and added her own, "Today, while I was working, I saw someone waving but I wasn't sure if they were waving at me or someone behind me. Am I good lifeguard?"

Jeremy grinned and tapped Stef on his shoulder, "Why did the little boy dropped his ice-cream cone?"

Sienna raised her eyebrows and I groaned.

"He didn't like it?"

Jeremy stared at him stoically, "No, he got hit by the bus."

"WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?"

The two maniacs grinned in unison.

"My best friend got really mad at me because he caught me sniffing his sister's panties-" Jeremy trailed off, letting Sienna continue.

"It didn't help that they were still on her."

"Or that his entire family was there, too."

Stef put his hands up against his ears to block the two of them out, but Sienna wasn't done, yet. She pulled at his hands and screamed in his ear, "It made the rest of the funeral REALLY AWKWARD!"

"DON'T EVER TALK TO ME AGAIN!" Stef roared back.

We more or less fell silent a few minutes later after that, as I put my earphones and blocked out the rest of the conversation between Sienna and Jeremy.

My phone pinged.

PJJ: If it means anything, I'm extremely flattered that you didn't freak out at being linked with me.

I looked back slowly, rolling my eyes. Jeremy winked at me and dived into his phone.

PJJ: And that eye roll. I agree with Stef, so swoon worthy.

Me: Trust me, it felt like somehow waking INTO a nightmare. The fact that people shipped US.

PJJ: I guess I can claim I made your dreams come true, now ;)

Me: The greatest achievement of your short life, certainly.

PJJ: I'm sorry I jumped on you like that. My dad would go nuts if he heard such rumours. The low grades are already doin' a number on him.

Me: I guess I can claim I am a knight in shining armour for saving you, princess.

I could practically feel a thunderous growl stuck in his throat for using that nickname and found myself smirking.

PJJ: Technically, Sienna saved my ass. You almost had it handed to me, Tommy.

Me: You want me to touch your ass so badly, JERRY, you just got to ask ;)

PJJ: Would you do it if I said please?

Me: Only with asbestos gloves on.

Jeremy snorted behind me, making Sienna look at him suspiciously. She tried to look into his phone, but he expertly turned it away.

PJJ: Harsh.

Me: I still don't like you, man.

PJJ: Believe it or not, that's progress. Still don't like you>> I hate you.

Me: These thoughts keep you up at night?

PJJ: Only fair considering I'm dominating your dreams.

It was my turn to laugh this time, but I managed to keep it in. Feeling that the conversation had reached a natural concluding point, I pocketed my phone and cranked the volume of my speakers higher.

Only when I dropped on my bed later that night did I realise that the field trip didn't turn out to be so bad after all. Having Jeremy be a part of the group made me train all my attention on trying to not be annoyed at him. I had no time to worry about the basketball match at all.

He had his uses after all.

-------------------------

Hey y'all!

We're finally getting somewhere with these two, oh my god! I, too, am getting somewhere with multiple books at the moment.

One of them is 'Soulmate Solutions' and I've also been working on a book called 'One Night With The Bad Boy' but that one barely has any drafts completed yet so that has a long way to go. Soulmate Solutions, however, already has the first five chapters published. Check that one out too, when you get the chance ;)

See you soon,

Byeeeeeeee