Catch Me (12 page)

“Fair enough. Hendrix is my brother. The beautiful little girl is my niece.”

Nick looks visibly shocked by this information, but says nothing more. I yank my hand from under his and stand, walking over to Shea.

“What about Shea? What is he?” Nick asks, his question stopping me from walking further.

I look over my shoulder and smile. “He’s my best friend.”

Nick’s eyebrows rise as if he wasn’t expecting that answer and I can see the disbelief written all over his face. I wish I could take Whiteout and go to town on it, but I would hate to erase any of his gorgeous features.

“Shea,” I whisper, shaking him. “You have to wake up so you can eat something.”

Shea mumbles and groans something about not getting enough sleep.

“Just let him sleep,” Nick suggests. “I’ll just keep setting up as many songs as I can to record on.”

He shrugs as if it’s no big deal for him to do this, and maybe it’s not, but to me it is a huge deal that he would act so nice about it. Most of the “big time producers” that I’ve met are eye-roll worthy. They’re all so nice in interviews and so humble in front of cameras, but you get them in a studio and they’re all about work no play, as they should be. Anybody else would have gone all diva over Shea taking a nap during his recording time and Nick hasn’t.

“What’s your deal?” I ask, walking back to sit beside Nick. “Why are you so nice?”

The side of his lip turns up. “You think I’m nice?”

I shrug. “Well, yeah.”

His eyebrows raise as he shakes his head. “You really haven’t heard much about me, have you?”

“You haven’t heard much about me either,” I reply.

“True … so let’s remedy that. Tell me more,” he says, shifting in his seat and crossing his ankle over his leg.

I laugh. “There’s not much to tell. I just meant because you didn’t know I was Hendrix’s sister.”

Nick nods. “What else are you?”

I shrug. “Chris and Roxana Harmon’s daughter,” I mutter, exhaling loudly and turning my head to look away. I hate having people know who my parents are. I wish it were something I could be proud of. I guess it should be since they both work hard and are so successful at what they do, but I can’t bring myself to be happy for any of it. Most of the time when people find out whose daughter I am, they leach on to me to better their own agenda.

“I didn’t ask who your family is, Brooklyn. I asked you who you are. I don’t give a fuck about who your parents are.”

I look back at him, stunned. Not because he doesn’t care about who my parents are but because it gives me nostalgia about the last person who said that to me.

“I have to go,” I say, standing quickly.

“You okay?” Nick asks, visibly confused.

“Yeah,” I whisper. “I just remembered something I have to do.”

I walk out before tears pool in my eyes.

It was a hot summer day and I was lying out by the pool of my parents’ Beverly Hills house waiting for my cousin Nina to wake up. Nina was staying with us for the summer, which I loved because nobody was ever home. My brother was seventeen at the time and wanted nothing to do with hanging out with thirteen-year-olds. I couldn’t blame him. I knew how annoying we could be sometimes. My mother had just fired the longest nanny I’d had, Mildred, saying that she was trying to seduce my father. Mildred was fifty-five years old and my mother was delusional. I had a feeling that the real reason she let her go was because she heard me refer to her as my mother one night. To me that was what Mildred was, though. She was more of a mother to me than my own. She had been ever since she started looking after me when I was six years old. Roxana, on the other hand, gave birth to me. But giving birth doesn’t make you a mother, much less a good one.

When Nina woke up, she found me by the pool, dozing off as I let the rays hit my back.

“What are we going to do today?” she asked. “Mall?”

“Okay,” I replied sleepily.

I told my driver, Todd, that we needed to go to the mall to shop for a party we were attending that night. One of the kids in school was having a birthday party and invited me. It was the first evening birthday party I would attend, so I was extra excited about it. After shopping we went back home and tried everything on. My mother barged into my room while I was pulling on a purple tube top.

“Oh, Brooklyn, how many cookies have you had this week?” she asked.

My excited face instantly fell. “I haven’t had any,” I lied. I’d only had two—how could she tell?

“Sure,” she scoffed. “If you keep that up, I’ll be able to pinch your fat.”

I looked in the full-length mirror in front of me, horrified. I’d heard the way my mother spoke about muffin tops and “cellulite covered thighs.” I’d heard the disapproval in her voice whenever she saw a friend of hers for the first time after a long time and she’d gained weight. “Wanda,” she’d say, “you look so … fat.” Just like that. The filter over my mother’s mouth wasn’t broken. She was just a bitch. That was something I’d learned from an early age.

“Yeah,” I muttered quietly, wishing I didn’t have to constantly diet to earn her approval, not that I would have it even if I looked like a skeleton.

“Where are you two going tonight, anyway?” my mother asked airily.

“Donovan’s party,” I replied.

“Donovan … Matthews?” she asked, seeming more interested.

“Yes.”

My mother nodded, a smile spreading over her face that made me wonder what she was thinking. Of course she never said, she just turned around, her perfectly wavy, frizz-less hair bouncing as she did, and walked out. My mother walked with a grace one could only hope to perfect in one lifetime. She’d been in countless fashion shows and modeled for numerous designers. She was still, even at her age, one of the most sought out models. She had long dark hair like mine, honey brown eyes like my brother’s, and a lean figure that made her look taller than she was. She had legs for days, my father loved to say. I always wished I did. The only thing I had for days was my ass, and I hoped to grow into it as I kept developing because it was calling a lot of unwanted attention from much older men.

When we got to Donovan’s party that night, Nina went off to flirt with the first cute guy she spotted. I walked around talking to the girls from my class, ignoring the way they began to whisper to each other as soon as I walked away. A couple of them asked me if my brother was coming over, which I hated. I hated that the girls in my grade and the grade above mine had such big crushes on him. And I hated that the guys in my class all called my mom a MILF. It didn’t disgust me more than it bothered me. I just hated that they paid attention to her but didn’t even give me a second glance.

Sighing, I stepped outside and wandered off to sit by the pool, grabbing a soda on my way there.

“You here alone?” Ryan, a tall lanky kid in my class asked.

“With my cousin Nina,” I replied.

“Oh. Nina. Yeah,” he said with a laugh.

“What?” I asked confused.

He shook his head. His hair was strawberry blond, matching the strawberry freckles that bathed his cheeks. He had nice green eyes, big ones that always looked like they were in awe of one thing or another.

“She was trying to hit on me,” he explained as he sunk down to the grass beside me.

“Ohhhh,” I said, laughing. “Sorry about that.”

He shrugged. “No biggie.”

We sat there in comfortable silence, listening to the music pouring out of the speakers and the loud squeals of laughter emitted from the girls that were dancing and jumping around. I never understood the whole
shriek when I see my friend even though I just saw her yesterday in school
, so I just sat there rolling my eyes most of the night.

“Can I ask you for a favor?” Ryan said after a while.

I closed my eyes and lay down beside him on the grass. I didn’t want to be rude because he was always so nice to me, but I felt like screaming, “Why? Why do people always want something from me?”

“Sure,” I replied instead.

“Will you be my pretend girlfriend?” he asked.

My eyes popped open and I turned to him. “Pretend girlfriend?” I asked, completely shocked by what he was asking. “Why
pretend
?” I was annoyed and a little hurt. I didn’t want a boyfriend. I didn’t even like Ryan in that way, but why did it have to be a pretend thing? “Is it because of my parents? You want to pretend you’re my boyfriend so people can say ‘Oh, look how cool Ryan is. He’s Brooklyn’s boyfriend. He gets to go to her house and see her mom all the time.’” I imitated with a goofy voice even though my blood was boiling. I sat up quickly, too pissed off to sit there any longer.

He grabbed my arm to keep me from standing. “No! I don’t give a fuck who your parents are, Brooklyn!” My eyes widened at his use of word. We didn’t usually say bad words, even though some of the other kids in our class spoke like sailors behind the teachers’ backs. “I need you to pretend because my father asked me if I was gay, and I said no, but I know he doesn’t believe me.”

My shoulders slumped. “Oh,” I said. “I guess … are you?”

He shrugged. His eyes looked sad, all the light that was previously there had gone out. “I don’t know,” he whispered. “I think so.”

I looked around, not knowing what to say or do. “Do … do you want to find out?” I finally asked.

His blond eyebrows crinkled. “How?”

“I dunno, maybe if you kiss me you’ll see that you’re not gay?” I suggested with a shrug.

Ryan laughed. “Okay.”

So we did. We both leaned in, our lips touching ever so slightly until they met. That’s as far as it got before we both pulled away, both looking equally as disturbed and disgusted.

“No?” I asked.

“No,” he confirmed.

We shared a laugh and lay back down beside each other for the rest of the night.

“Well, boyfriend, I think I’m going to go home now,” I said when I saw Nina walk outside.

Ryan smiled brightly. “So that’s a yes? You’ll be my girlfriend?”

I laughed and bumped him with my elbow. “Are gay guys supposed to be that excited about having a girlfriend?”

“A pretend one, yeah,” he said, laughing as well.

“So I guess that’s a yes,” I said. It’s not like I had anything to lose.

“Brooklyn,” he said, standing and helping me up. “This will be the beginning of a beautiful pretend relationship.”

I shook my head, unable to contain my smile. “I believe you.”

And that was how my friendship with Ryan went from “just friends that talk here and there” to “pretend boyfriend and girlfriend that don’t let each other breathe because we talked so much.” And I loved it. Every moment of my relationship with Ryan was full of joy.

For a while.

Much like non-pretend relationships.

I’m expecting Shea to call me at any moment. He’s been in the studios downstairs for the past week and a half and has yet to tell me what he wants to talk to me about. I’ve made it a point to stay out of his way so he can focus on his album. We’ve been to lunch a couple of times, but other than that it’s been hi and bye. Even when I leave for the day, he and Nick are holed up in the office working their asses off.