Another Monday and Brandon found himself dragging his ass out of bed. Like pretty much every night since he returned, he found himself up until midnight or later Zooming or talking to Sarah on the phone. The perk to this was that he had time to get things graded and he was plenty prepared for the rest of the semester which was set to end at Christmas.
The downside to these late hours was that Brandon had always been an “old man.” He enjoyed his sleep, going to bed around 10 on school nights and not much after 11 on weekends, throwing in a nap on occasion and that was his perfect world. Since coming home, that schedule was all out of whack. The newest thing they had started at least once a week, they would pick a movie to watch on Netflix or Amazon Prime and then watch it together while on Zoom. It was cheesy as hell, but it gave them a sense of normalcy and a bit of a feeling of being a normal couple.
There was that term again, couple. Brandon still had a hard time believing that he was dating the country superstar Sarah Bixby. So far they had managed to keep it a secret from the press which was a feat in and of itself. Someone had snapped a picture of them saying goodbye and Sarah had been questioned a couple of times by reporters asking who he was. She just avoided the question and it seemed that the attention had died down. She had mentioned to her family that she was seeing someone, but had left out how they met. She had given them the basic information about him, but that was the extent; Brandon had been mum about the whole thing. He had told his buddy Matt that he had a good time on his trip and left it at that. He confided in his dad that he had met someone, her name was Sarah, and that she worked with Morgan. Obviously since his dad knew, that meant his mom knew and she was prying more and more as the weeks went on. He figured he was going to have to give them more or they would lose their mind.
Brandon showered, headed to school, and got through his morning classes. As 4th period was wrapping up, one of his students, Haillee, came up to his desk, “Mr. Baker, can I ask you something?”
“Sure Haillee, what’s up?”
The student turned her phone to him, showed him a picture and said “Is this you?”
Brandon took the phone from her, zoomed in and was confronted with a picture that had just showed up on TMZ under the headline “The first picture of Sarah Bixby’s secret man?” It was a grainy photo that apparently someone had snapped when they were at dinner in Charlottesville. In it, Brandon was across from Sarah and beside Morgan with Sarah’s hand touching his arm as they laughed. Beside that image showed the picture of them saying goodbye where you could just make out parts of the side of Brandon’s face.
Brandon handed the phone back, “That’s funny Haille, how would I know, let alone date a country superstar?”
Haillee looked at him, “Looks an awful lot like you.”
Brandon stood, grabbed his lunch out of his fridge and shooed the student out of his room as he headed to the teachers lounge.
As he walked into the lounge, Matt was already there, he let out a loud “FUCK!”
Matt dropped his fork, “What the hell dude?”
Brandon sat, fumbling with his phone, pulling up the image, slid it over to Matt, “Notice anything?”
Matt looked at the phone and said, “Yeah, it’s the band you went and saw, some dude is with them….HOLD ON! That dude is you, and the hot chick is touching you!”
Brandon rested his head in his hands and said, “So, I’ve been holding back on you and it’s probably going to get big fast. I spent ALOT of time with Sarah, and we are kinda a thing now.”
“You’re kidding right, there’s no way that you’re seeing a country star.”
“No I’m not kidding, I’m dating Sarah Bixby.”
Brandon stood and smacked Brandon on the back, “My dude!!! You gotta give me the details.”
Brandon munched quietly on his bag of chips, “There’s nothing to tell, she’s a sweet, genuine person, wanted to be a librarian before the music got big.”
“So you hooked up with her?”
“Dude come on, this isn’t one of your one night stands, I’m not going to spill the beans.”
“Come on man, just tell me is she as hot in person as on tv?”
Brandon smiled, “Dude she’s absolutely stunning.”
Before Matt could say another word, Brandon’s phone rang. He looked down at it and saw “S.B-Morgans friend” appear. Brandon stood up, “I gotta take this.”
As Brandon walked to the corner of the lounge, Matt said, “It’s her isn’t it.”
Brandon ignored Matt, answering the phone with, “Hey, I think I know why you’re calling.
Ch. 2
Sarah was comfortable. Her and Brandon had fallen into a routine that was working for them. With Zoom, calls and texts throughout the day, they were becoming closer and everything just felt natural. She was looking forward to seeing Brandon again over the Thanksgiving holiday, then sorting out spending more time together, maybe a week over Christmas. Everything had been going well as the tour began to wind down, only 3 more shows with the last one being the next Friday back home in Biloxi where her friends and family could celebrate with her. Her career was on track, her love life was looking up, then the proverbial shit hit the fan when someone sent a decent picture of Brandon’s face to TMZ. Now she and Morgan were frantically trying to protect Brandon to save him from harassment.
Sarah was so relieved to hear Brandon’s voice, she said solemnly, “Hey baby, I’m sorry to call during the middle of school.”
“No worries, I wish it was under better circumstances. A student showed me the picture right before I came to lunch.”
Sarah responded, “Yeah, our social media manager saw it and called Morgan. She says hi, but is trying to sort out if they will be able to put a name with your face.”
Brandon nodded as he spoke on the phone, “Well, I’ve always kept my Facebook, Twitter and Instagram locked down because of students, I’ll go through and change profile pictures to something non-descript, that should help, maybe change the name to my first and middle name, then it’ll make it harder for them to find me.”
“Wow, that is a lot of steps, have you been thinking about this?”
Brandon chuckled, “I have to admit, I figured this would happen someday so I already thought how I could try to negate it. I’ve come clean with my buddy Matt, but I think I may have to go talk to my admin team next.”
“Brandon, I’m sorry you’re having to do this, you don’t need this piled on your plate. God knows dating me is crazy enough.”
Brandon laughed again, “You’re a good kind of crazy, we will sort this out. ”
“While I’ve got you, have you given any more thought on when we can see each other.”
Brandon responded, “I was thinking I’d come down Thanksgiving night and stay until Sunday, does that work for you?”
On the other end, Sarah grinned, “I wish it was longer but, but I’ll take what I can get. My parents and siblings are looking forward to meeting you. Daddy says that you can stay with us, in the guest room of course.”
Brandon laughed again, “That sounds good. I’d love to talk longer but if I’m going to talk to my principal, I probably need to do it before the end of lunch.”
“Okay, I’ll talk to you tonight like normal. We are supposed to get to Oak Mountain later tonight, I’ll talk to you around 10. Bye Brandon.
“Bye Sarah.”
As Brandon hung up the phone, Matt says, “Holy shit dude, you really are dating a rock star!!!!”
Brandon shook his head and as he left the lounge to talk to his principal Bret Lawerance he said, “She’s a country star, less cocaine, more cowboy boots”
***
Sarah hung up the phone and looked at Morgan, “Well he took that well.”
Morgan nodded, “I figured he would, he knew this was a possibility, and while it’s annoying and stupid, he will handle it. Hopefully with the changes he’s going to make, it’ll be hard for anyone to track him down.”
“I know, but part of me wonders if we could get ahead of it, releasing a statement or I could post the picture of us at the beach on Instagram. Maybe if it wasn’t so mysterious, people would leave him and us alone.”
Morgan frowned a bit, “That is definitely an option, but then we’d have people digging into when you met/how long you’ve known each other. And as your manager, I think that would be bad, you’d get branded as a whore or something like that. As your friend though they are stupid, and you two shouldn’t have to hide your relationship.”
Sarah nodded and thought for a minute, “You’re right, I’ll wait until we meet the parents, then I guess we can go public.”
“I’m sorry Sarah, this is a pain in the ass, but once the tour is over, it’ll get easier. I hope.”
Sarah sighed, “I hope you’re right…”
***
Brandon walked into the main office and walked up to his principal’s door, seeing it was open, he knocked and stuck his head in, “Hey Bret, you got a minute?”
Bret Lawerance looked up, “Sure man, come on in.”
Brandon entered the office, shut the door and sat down. Bret got a concerned look on his face, “Uh oh, is everything okay? Did you get another job?”
Brandon laughed, “Oh I wish it was that simple.”
When Bret didn’t respond, Brandon slid his phone across the desk and continued, “So that picture you see was posted on the celebrity gossip site TMZ, the guy in both pictures is me. The woman is Sarah Bixby, one part of the country duo Biloxi Bronco’s. Sarah and I are dating. We have kept it quiet from pretty much everyone, but it appears the media has gotten ahold of it. They will probably start digging to try and figure out who I am. There’s a concern that they will be intense because I’m not a celebrity, I’m just a teacher. I, well we thought it was best to let you know in case something came up.”
Bret listened intently, thought for a moment then said, “Okay, I’ll make sure school security knows, but what are you doing to try and stay anonymous?”
“Well, I’m going to make my social media accounts as vague and anonymous as I can, and they already are a good bit, so hopefully that will make it harder to track me down, and hopefully once their tour is done, they will lose interest, or someone will do something stupid and our relationship won’t matter.”