American Girl On Saturn (15 page)

“That’s like…” Emery pauses and looks at me. Then she looks back at Paige and Lauren. “It’s like when you tattle on someone because they are naked in your sister’s room. Then you get in trouble for tattling, but the naked person doesn’t get in trouble for being naked.”

Oh. My. Saturn. I want to sort of…no…completely die right now. If there is anything at all from this lockdown that I want to forget about, it’s the mistaken nudity. Emery’s misunderstanding costs me two days with Milo. That doesn’t even include the humility, embarrassment, and broken heart.

“Aralie,” Lauren says. “You’re dating someone?”

Of course. Ice Queen Chloe would never have a naked boy in her room. Not even the ever-so-gorgeous Milo of Spaceships Around Saturn. I can’t believe I thought for half a second that they’d think it was me.

“No,” Aralie says. “Emery’s just talking crazy. She’s five years old, remember? None of us have boyfriends.”

She shoots Emery an evil eye, and I’m thankful because it shuts Emery up for the time being. The last thing I want to talk about is Milo and mistaken nudity in my bedroom. The word ‘boyfriend’ is completely banned from my vocabulary for the moment.

Leaving the house was a bad idea. I should’ve just stayed home with Noah’s wisecracks and Benji’s bad high notes and Milo’s caramel eyes. Shoot, I could take Aralie and Jules in another boxing round. I’d even let Tate laugh the entire time.

Lauren glances back up at the flat screen. The music video ended moments ago, but now there’s a news segment about the guys. Fans cry to the cameras about missing out on the shows. These girls all talk about how it was going to be the highlight of their summers.

“They’ll never come back here again,” Lauren says. “I mean, you come to the USA for your first big tour here, and BAM! Someone tries to kill you. I bet they hate America.”

“No!” Emery screams. She leaps forward, halfway onto the table. “They
love
America!”

Aralie and I grab
our little sister simultaneously and pull her back. This has gone too far. She’s going to snap any second. Mom should’ve known better than to let Emery out of the house. There’s no way to contain an almost-six-year-old Saturnite. The universe isn’t ready for people like Emery. Scratch that – there isn’t anyone who can compare to Emery.

“Calm down,” I tell her. “I’m sure your boyband will come back to America, and I bet Mom and Dad will buy tickets for you. We’ll make it happen if you just
caaaaalm doooown.”

I drag out the last two words like Milo would on Twitter. I don’t think the little Saturnite knows what to do with herself. She’s in a big world where she can’t tell her biggest secret ever.
Why couldn’t the flat screen just play footage of One Direction instead? They’re so much more famous than Spaceships Around Saturn.

The waitress interrupts Emery’s panic and places two large pizzas on the table ahead of us. I grab a slice of pepperoni for Emery. She wasn’t lying about being hungry. This is the first time since lockdown started that I’ve seen her care more about eating than talking about Benji.

I’m three bites into a slice of cheese pizza when my cell phone rings. I dig into my purse and see
Mom
flashing on the screen.

“Hello?” I say, hoping she’s not calling to tell me that lockdown is over and the guys left.

“Why, hello, Ms. Branson,” Milo says.

“Hi…Mom,” I stammer. “Is there a reason
you’re calling at such an inconvenient time? You know I’m with Paige and Lauren, right?”

“Oh Chloe,” Milo says. “Am I making this awkward for you?”

Awkward is an understatement. I pray that Emery doesn’t hear his voice through the speaker. Surely Milo knows to keep his voice down. I can’t believe Mom let him use her cell phone to call me. She has to be in the room with him. She wouldn’t risk giving the guys her cell phone without monitoring them. Then again, she trusts Milo.

He clears his throat. “I’m sitting here with my dick
-of-a-friend Julian Rossi, who wanted to know if you’d be so kind as to bring us food.”

“Hold on, Mom,” I say into the phone. I get up from the table.

Aralie looks at me with that sisterly look that clearly says that she knows I’m not talking to Mom. In fact, she flags down the waitress and asks for a to-go box as I step away from the table. I don’t say anything else until I’m in the parking lot.

“Milo Grayson, do you have any clue what you just put me through?” I ask.

He laughs, and I can’t even be mad.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “Really though, we’re starving. Jules said Aralie would never do him a favor, and you wouldn’t do it for him because of what happened the last time you did him a favor. So I’m calling. Your mom said you wouldn’t do it unless you felt guilted into it, and she suggested I call since I defended your honor earlier.”

I sigh and dig through my purse for a pen.

“Order when ready, Mr. Grayson.”

I linger around the kitchen in my pajama pants and a tank top. The sun has barely risen outside, and I don’t know how I’m even awake. Noah and Milo kept me up watching movies until far too into the night.

The microwave spins around, heating leftover pizza from the night before. Aralie, Emery, and I had to drive around the block a few times until Paige and Lauren left before we could pick up the enormous order that Milo and Jules requested. The microwave beeps
once, and I open it before it can wake up the entire household.

“
Good morning, beautiful,” Milo says from behind me.

I spin around, wishing I
’d taken the time to wash off yesterday’s makeup and repaint my face. At least I ran a brush through my hair, which is more than he’s done. How is it that he’s still cute with messy hair and sleepy eyes?

He wraps his arms around me, pulls me to his chest, and kisses my forehead.

“Why are you even awake?” he asks.

“
I could ask you the same thing,” I say.

He yawns in response, and I laugh. That
’s pretty much how I feel. I grab my barely-warmed pizza, and Milo follows me to the dining room table. He sits next to me, eating the pepperonis that I pick off of the slice, but he doesn’t say anything else.

After a silent breakfast, we step out onto the patio to watch the sun creep into the clouds. Milo sits poolside and dangles his legs into the water, sending ripples across the steady morning pool.

“Let’s go swimming tonight,” he says. “You know, just the two of us. After midnight.”

I sit next to him and dip my feet into the water. It
’s colder than I expected for a summer morning. A chill rushes over my skin, and goosebumps sprout on my legs.

“
You’re getting brave,” I say, nudging him in the side. “You know we could get caught, right?”

He shrugs.
“I’ve already been naked in your bedroom. It can’t get much worse than that.”

I lock my arm around his and rest my head against his
shoulder. Hues of pink and orange streak across the sky. An overwhelming sadness hits me when I think about butterflies having to bleed and die to give our world color each day.

“
You know what?” he asks. “We should totally–”

He stops talking, and I hear why.

Voices. Well, a voice.

Aralie laughs about something, and Milo splashes his foot in the water to alert her that someone else is outside.

She falls silent. There’s a “shhh” again, like the other night in her bedroom. Footsteps scurry across the grass in another direction.

Milo
’s eyes light up.

“
We should go see who is with her,” he whispers.

“
Then we’d have to explain what we’re doing out here alone,” I whisper back.

He squints his eyes to see, but the privacy fence blocks our view. I wonder if they can see us, if they
’re looking through the cracks and wondering why I’m cuddled up next to Milo at sunrise.

A
whoosh
slices through the air, and Emery’s purple beach ball flies over the fence. It thuds against the water in the pool and floats toward us. I jump up and rush across the patio, leaving a track of wet footprints behind me.

But Milo likes playing into this game far too much. He grabs the pool net and pulls the plastic ball over to him. He shakes the water off of it and takes a few steps back. Then, like
an NFL star about to win the Super Bowl, he kicks the ball with all his might. It soars over the fence like a purple planet falling out of space.

“
Go!” he whispers as he dashes toward me.

As soon as we
’re safe inside the kitchen, Milo grabs the curtain and jerks it across the sliding glass door. It sways for a moment, like it’s unsure of itself. We rarely ever block our view of the pool.

“We need a window,” Milo says, still keeping his voice low.

Sometimes, I think guys are more into the drama and gossip than girls are. He stares at me, wide-eyed and waiting for a response.

“Upstairs,” I say. “But we have to be quiet.”

We hurry back up to Mom
’s old crafting room with the piano. It has the best view of the backyard, from the pool all the way to the treehouse, although the treehouse is so small from here.

The yard is empty, though. No sign of Aralie. No sign of Tate or Jules. They either found a way back in while we were seeking them out or they
’ve found a great hiding spot outside. For all I know, they may be in the treehouse.

But I bet a Saturn boy isn
’t singing a cover song to my sister.

Milo cranes his neck to see out of the window.
He sighs in defeat.

“I should just go look in their rooms and see who’s still here,” he says.

Even though I can
’t see the expression on my face, I feel like I have one of those Mom faces on. I’m too young to start sounding like her, so I don’t say anything. I wish I could wipe my face back to an expressionless slate.

“What?” Milo asks. “I just want to know.”

He shrugs it off like it
’s no big deal and walks across the room to the door. I follow behind him, down the staircase, and back to his bedroom. It’s weird being in here. The guest rooms are on a wing of their own off of my, Aralie’s, and Emery’s hallway. We never bother to come down here, and if we do have overnight company, it usually consists of Mom’s high school friends. Then we definitely avoid venturing down this way.

Milo has made it his own. Papers sprawl across the desk with random song lyrics. There
’s a few pages of sheet music and a pack of new guitar strings. His guitar rests against the wall, next to a pile of dirty clothes. If there was an Xbox in here, it’d feel like it was really his room.

“I’m sorry,” he says, stretching out on the bed. “I’d just feel better if...”

His voice trails off, and he flips over to bury his face into his pillow. Clearly he doesn
’t want to have this conversation. I sit at the end of his bed, feeling as unwanted as Jules’s laundry at the end of Aralie’s bed. He wants to know who Aralie is sneaking out with so he can lecture them about the dangers of having a girlfriend while being in a boyband.

“You’d feel better if what?” I ask. “If you knew? So you could stop whatever is going on with them? So you could stop Aralie from ‘wrecking’ the band?”

His face remains buried. Therefore, he misses my air quotes around the word
‘wrecking.’ I don’t like how this is all of a sudden Aralie’s fault. Tate is just as guilty as she is, and Milo has no reason to judge them because he kissed me during hide-and-seek.

He rolls over and forces himself to sit up.

“No,” he says. “I wanted them to come clean first so management won’t blast me as much when I tell them about us.”

Us. He just said
us
. As in, both Milo and me…as one. Not only that but he used the big M word – management. My lips quiver as I breathe in and try to form words. Instead, I just exhale unsteadily like I’m hyperventilating or dry heaving.

He watches me for half a second then slides down to the end of the bed. He doesn’t say anything, but he takes my hand and squeezes it. Then he places it against his chest.

“Here’s my theory,” he says. “If one of us has a girlfriend, that one guy will catch all of the hell. But if two of us have girlfriends, then we can team up and argue our sides of it.”

Girlfriend
. Why these insanely awesome yet terrifying words, Milo? How can he even expect me to respond to that? I can’t even breathe, much less speak!

“I’m sorry,” he spits out after seeing the evident panic on my face. He lets go of my hand. “You never said you wanted to be my girlfriend. I’m rushing things, aren’t I? This is crazy, right? You don’t even know my birthday or my middle name or all of those other things that you probably should know before I talk all crazy.”

His birthday is November twenty-first. His middle name is David. His favorite movie is Point Break, and he wishes he lived near a beach. He could survive on milk and Oreos and be happy.

I don’t tell him that I know these things or then he’ll know that I spent too many hours
Googling him and memorizing every detail of his existence. I feel like the term ‘fangirl’ is an understatement. Saturnite doesn’t even cover it. I’m definitely worthy of a Saturnite upgrade. Maybe I’m a super-Saturnite? I mean, the boy did kiss me. That counts for more, right?

“Chloe,” Milo says, interrupting my
fangirlisms. “Say something? Please? Tell me to shut up or that you hate me? Anything?”

“I don’t hate you,” I say, instantly wishing I’d said something else first.

“That’s a start,” he says.

I want to tell him that yes, he’s rushing things, and yes, this is crazy, but no, I don’t care one tiny bit. I’m absolutely crazy about him – even in this super short amount of time. It wouldn’t even be an issue if he was just some guy from school. Then it’d be completely normal to be obsessing after a week because I’m a girl, and that’s what we do! But he’s famous, and I’m nothing, and his management team isn’t going to be cool with the whole lockdown-hookup deal.

However, I can’t even begin to say these things. Instead, I just completely lose it and laugh.

“At least you’re not crying,” Milo says.

“There’s no reason to cry,” I assure him.

But then it hits me. There
is
a reason. Lockdown won’t last forever. I think that may be worse than suicidal, color-draining butterflies. He has to get back on tour, obviously. He has to keep making music and living his dream and making millions of people – girls – happy on a daily basis. Lockdown is preventing him from doing what he does best. Yeah, it benefits me, but that’s like living in a black and white world.

That’s why the butterflies have to die. The world needs color. The world needs Milo.

I lean in and kiss him on the cheek.

“I’m
gonna go take a shower,” I say. “We’ll talk later?”

He nods, but I think he’d nod if I said I was going to go jump off the roof. He’s in that robotic guy-mode where he’ll go along with anything and everything I say so he won’t mess anything up more than he thinks he already has.

I fall back onto my bed and let my wet hair soak my pillow. I would’ve stayed in the shower for hours if the water hadn’t started to get cold. There are too many people using the hot water supply in our house these days.

Down the hallway, Aralie shouts something about Mutilated Arteries and slams her door. Moments later, Emery runs past my bedroom. Her footsteps are so distinct. She screams something about Twitter. She must be looking for Benji. I could lie in bed all day, avoid the world, and be perfectly content with it.

That’s a lie – I’d be miserable because I’d be avoiding Milo as well. I force myself to get up, throw myself together, and travel back downstairs. I can’t chicken out. Once
lockdown is over, the guys will be back on the road, with millions of girls throwing themselves at them on a regular basis. This may be the only chance I ever have to really make this guy mine.

Emery is running her mouth when I round the corner downstairs. I follow her words until I find her in the smaller living room off of the foyer, where we sat the night we first learned about lockdown.

“I’m wearing green, and you’re wearing green, so that means we’ll be together forever,” she explains to Benji.

I glance down at my white tank top with the black trim. T
hank God I’m not wearing green or Emery would accuse me of wrecking her relationship with Benji. Milo looks my way when I walk into the living room. He’s wearing a white T-shirt. A black triangle is in the center of his shirt. It’s a play button, like on a CD player. There’s a pause button next to it.

Great. We’re both wearing white with a touch of black. We’re meant to be together forever.

“Ooooooh,” Emery coos when she sees me. “Chloe and Milo are wearing the same colors.”

Of course, Emery would notice something like this. A goofy grin pops up on Milo’s face.

“Sorry, Chloe,” he says. “You’re stuck with me forever now. Emery’s rules.”

Benji pulls his shirt off and tosses it to Milo. “
Wanna trade, bro?”

Milo throws the
green shirt back to Benji. “No way…bro.”

Benji stares at the shirt in his hand for a moment, like he doesn’
t want to put it back on because it’s cursed with eternal links to Emery. A heart with a keyhole decorates his chest. I wonder if he has the key tattooed somewhere else.

Emery ignores – or maybe doesn’t understand – Benji’s insult.

“Yesterday, Chloe’s friend Lauren said you wouldn’t be my best friend if you met me,” she informs Benji.

One, Lauren isn’t my friend. And two, kudos to Emery for actually keeping our secret through Lauren’s rude comments. I dare to venture across the room and sit on the couch with Milo. It’s a bit nostalgic, sitting on the same couch we sat on the night we first met…when I was captivated by his caramel eyes and amazing boyish
scent.