The Escalade pulls to a stop in front of my curb, and Katrina’s driver rounds the front to my side. I heave a sigh and climb out. “Skate park. He’d like to go to a skate park,” I suggest, because the thought of stripper cakes is gross, but I don’t think she hears me.
“Katrina! Vaughn!”
There’s a photographer on the street, leaning out of his car window. Did he follow us? Jeez, that’s creepy.
Katrina doesn’t even react to his shouts. It’s like he doesn’t exist to her.
“I’ll call you, darling.” She blows me a couple of kisses that are captured by the photographer, while I jog to the front door.
Great. I’m going to have to warn Oakley about this, although…it might be kinda hilarious to see his face when he walks into his twentieth birthday party and sees a bunch of us wearing party hats and holding paper donkey tails.
Maybe I won’t tell him. Maybe I’ll keep it a secret and then laugh my butt off. In fact, if I share the idea with Claudia, she’ll probably end up dying with glee over the wholesome nature of the plan.
A grin spreads across my face as I picture Oakley in a blindfold staggering around with a broomstick while whacking at a papier mâché pony. Katrina would probably fill the piñata with gold coins or hundies, but it’d still be hilarious. And it would serve him right for being such a jerk to me last night.
Speaking of jerks…I power my phone on and call W as I head upstairs to my bedroom. He picks up on the first ring, which tells me he was waiting for me to call him back.
“Why won’t you answer any of my texts?” he demands.
“Because we’re not supposed to be texting. I could get in trouble if it comes out that we’re in contact. I told you that before.”
“Is that in your contract?” he mocks. “Do you have specific terms in there like how many times he gets to stick his tongue down your throat or is that a freebie you threw in because you get to hang out with Oakley Ford now?”
My pulse speeds up in panic. “It’s not like that.”
“Either your thing with Ford is a publicity stunt or you’re cheating on me,” he says bluntly.
“You know what this is.” It’s not the greatest answer, but I can’t say any more because I’m afraid Jim will appear with his hammer.
“Uh-huh, sure. It’s all fake, right?” He curses angrily. “Well, it doesn’t look fake. You’re smiling in those pictures! And in the one where he’s licking you like you’re an ice cream cone, you’re squeezing his arms. And what about those Tweets?” W recites a few of the Tweets Oakley and I exchanged after the ice cream date. “Those don’t sound like just friends to me, V!”
“It’s nothing,” I insist.
“Do you know how this looks at school? Guys look at me like I’m some dumb schmuck. Girls think I’m a big fat loser. Last night I was at some party and my roommates are all getting some. There are dimes everywhere, but me? I’m standing in the corner, holding my dick in my own hand because my girlfriend, who should’ve been making out with me, is kissing some jerk in front of the camera!”
I can practically see him frothing at this point. And what can I say? He’s right. If the tables were turned, I’d be superupset every time I saw a picture of W with his fake girlfriend. I’d have a very hard time believing it wasn’t real. When I look at those pictures, they don’t look like I’m hating life or hating Oakley. I look…happy and excited.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
There’s a pause. “I’m sorry, too.”
“About what?” But I know even before he says the words. I know because of the guilty note in his voice that’s mixed with a sort of triumph.
Rather than respond, he goes quiet again. Then he swears. “Look, I’m coming over tonight. We’ll talk about it then, okay?”
I don’t want to talk about it. I…Oh God, I don’t want to know. And yet I still find myself saying, “Talk to me now.”
W remains stubborn. “No. I want to see you. My last class ends at six. I’ll head over right after and be at your place around eight.”
It’s only three! He’s going to make me wait five hours to hear whatever terrifying thing he has to say? Who does that?
“Please just tell me now,” I plead.
“I’ll be over later,” is all he says.
Then he hangs up.
* * *
I spend the rest of the afternoon and most of the evening worrying about W’s visit. Paisley gets home from work to find me curled up on my bed watching a slideshow on my laptop. Pictures of me and W from high school flash across the screen. The ones that used to make me smile don’t inspire the same response tonight, no matter how hard I focus on all those good memories.
“You okay?” my sister asks with a frown.
“I’m fine,” I lie.
“Is W mad about the kiss?” she guesses.
I nod miserably. Paisley comes over and sits down on the bed. Her hand smooths over my hair. “This is harder than you thought it was going to be, isn’t it?”
An image of W and me at the beach pops up. His arm is wrapped around my waist and he’s looking so happy. I don’t think I’m ever going to see that smile directed toward me again.
“I think he hooked up with someone else at a party last night.” I slap the laptop shut. “He’s coming over to tell me something because he’s ‘sorry, too.’”
Paisley’s mouth thins out. I’m not sure if she’s upset at me inviting W over or him hurting me. Probably a mixture of both. “Unless he’s involved in some make-believe relationship, too, that is so not cool.”
“But is it fair of me to be angry with him?” I counter, torn between my own guilt and my anger. “Because I did kiss Oakley last night.”
Or rather, he kissed me.
“This is your job. It’s like you’re an actress and you’re playing a part.”
“But W doesn’t know that.”
Paisley’s hand stops on the top of my head. “I know you. I know you tried to explain as much as you could without breaking the NDA, and W’s smart enough to put two and two together. If he cheated on you, it’s not your fault.” She sighs. “Now, I’m not going to call Claudia and tell her you’re breaking the rules, because I love you and this is difficult, but you can’t invite him over again without Claudia’s permission. There aren’t cameras camped outside—yet.”
I clench my hands together. I hate this, even though I know Paisley is right. The other times W has come over, Claudia made sure to arrange some PR event for Oakley so that the cameras would be drawn to him and not to me.
“You going to be okay?” Paisley asks.
“Sure.” I climb off the bed, because sitting in my room moping isn’t going to accomplish anything. “I’m going to make a cake. Have a preference? Red Velvet? Molten Lava?”
A smile appears on my sister’s face as she considers the options. “How about your milk cake?”
“Tres leches? I can do that.”
Baking the cake gives my brain something to think about other than W, Oakley and the complicated mess my life has become. On the bright side, at least I’m not worrying about how I have no vision for the future. On the not-bright side, the anxiety in my stomach might give me ulcers before the age of twenty.
When my boyfriend finally shows up, it’s eight thirty and my nerves are high. Neither of us speaks as we walk into my bedroom and shut the door. We just stand there for a moment, eyeing each other.
W looks the way he always looks. Jeans, a rugby shirt, sneakers and a backward baseball cap. But his crooked grin is missing, and his eyes contain a bit of a chill.
After a few seconds he throws himself on my bed, which he knows I hate. I like things tidy and he’s messing them up, but I feel guilty about so many things that I don’t have the nerve to tell him to get off my bed and sit in the chair like a normal human.
Irritably, I pull out my desk chair. “Will you please get your shoes off my comforter?”