A Spotlight Summer (Jack Gilinsky)

Chapter Thirty

Jack POV

“We should be back around five,” I assured Kelsey with a smile on my face.

“Sounds good, I’ll be here waiting.”

“Can you believe that we haven’t been on an actual, real date yet?” I asked.

Kelsey laughed and shook her head. “Better late than never.”

Johnson and I were getting ready to head out to a fan hangout in Vegas; our show sold out quickly, which meant a lot of our fans were upset that they would miss out on seeing us. To appease them all, we decided that we would have a small hangout the day before the show in order to keep everyone happy and satisfied.

I felt guilty about neglecting Kelsey back in Colorado, so I suggested that we go out to dinner on our first official date. It was crazy that after two months of being inseparable, I never even took the girl out for a meal.

Not my finest hour.

When I brought this up to Kelsey, her face lit up and I felt a pang of longing as her brown eyes crinkled in happiness. I didn’t want to leave her in a hotel room alone while I was meeting fans—I wanted to be with her.

I wanted her proximity and her laugh and her brazen smile and her raised eyebrows and her long legs and her silky hair and—

“Jack, you ready to go?” Johnson snapped me out of my thoughts and I nodded.

I bent down to place a quick kiss on Kelsey’s lips and sent her a wink as I left with Johnson.

“Tonight!” I called after her.

“I’ll be waiting!” she returned.

Once outside, Johnson and I hopped into an Uber and arrived at the fan hangout.

“Holy shit,” Johnson whispered as he peered out of the window and saw the massive queue of girls waiting to enter the building.

The line wrapped around twice outside, not to mention the line inside the building that went all the way to the back of the complex.

“This is gonna take forever,” Johnson stated.

“Well then we better get started.”

Three hours later, we still had a long way to go. We tried to spend individual time with each group of girls, but it would have taken double the time to actually have a real conversation with each and every person. Johnson and I mindlessly went through the routine: meet a girl, give her a hug, say ‘thank you’ when she exclaimed that she loved us, take a picture, ask a question or two, give another hug, wave as she walks away, then repeat as the next girl comes running forward.

After another hour passed, we were granted a ten minute break.

“Bro, I can’t wait for California in three days,” Johnson said through a full mouth of chips.

“It’s gonna be sick. I can’t wait to see Sam. Kelsey is ecstatic about seeing Jessa too,” I added. “Hey, has Fiona decided if she’s flying out or not?”

Johnson sipped his drink and then nodded. “I practically had to beg her because she’s flying in on Saturday and her first day of class is Monday. But then I decided to remind her that she would be able to spend a day at Disneyland with her boyfriend and best friends, so she really couldn’t refute the offer.”

After about three minutes of chatter, I suggested, “Hey, let’s go back out there. There are still so many people.”

“They might start turning people away,” Johnson commented.