Something Real (42 page)

“Hi, Chloe.” Am I imagining the undercurrent of excitement in her voice? “I thought I’d be hearing from you. You okay over there? I was watching last night.”

“Not exactly. I think my brother and I need to meet with you.”

“How’s this Saturday?”

*   *   *

We spend most of Saturday morning in Melinda Greenberg’s cluttered office, building a case out of long-ago hurts and purposely forgotten violations. We talk about things like the incident in season twelve when my dad called Mom a “media whore bitch from hell” on
Dr. Phil
during a segment on marriage counseling. Or how MetaReel had organized a trip to a nutritionist when I was gaining a little weight and how I’d had to stand on the scale in front of the cameras while he outlined all the ways in which my body wasn’t good enough. A few weeks later, the cameras tagged along when I went back to the same nutritionist after Mom caught me throwing up my dinner.

I try to explain to Melinda how being on camera makes you start watching yourself, not even knowing where the camera “you” ends and the real “you” begins—like having multiple personalities. She tells us we have a strong case and we just might win, but that it will be hard and ugly. She asks us, over and over, if we are sure we want to do this. That it means even more publicity and that MetaReel won’t hold back any punches.

We point to the contract on her desk and ask where we need to sign.

SEASON 17, EPISODE 29

(The One with the Boutonnieres)

Two weeks. In two weeks I will turn eighteen. Thus far, word hasn’t leaked about our visit to the lawyer, so we decide not to mention it at home until Melinda gives us the go-ahead. Now I’m at Patrick’s, smuggled away there after school in his mother’s SUV. I wonder if the MetaReel camera dude who was supposed to drive home with me is still waiting.

We’re lying on Patrick’s bed, our limbs tangled, my head on his chest.

“So Tessa’s parents are cool with it?” he asks. Tessa and her family have agreed to let Benny and me move in with them as soon as I turn eighteen.

I smile contentedly as he runs his hands through my hair.

“Yeah. I told them the Vultures would descend, but I think Mr. Lee’s excited about getting to do our story.”

I feel Patrick stiffen. “So they’re only letting you stay there if you repay him with interviews?”

I sit up and look down at him. “It’s not like that.” He purses his lips, his brown eyes flashing. He’s pretty sexy when he’s protective like this.

“
Seriously
. I can’t help it if my best friend’s dad is a reporter. And he didn’t ask. In fact, when I offered to give him the exclusive, he flat-out said no.”

Patrick snorts and sits up in one fluid, agitated gesture. “Chloe, when are you going to stop letting people walk all over you?”

I frown at his frustrated tone. “I’m not letting him walk all over me. I
want
to do the interview. It’s the only way I can control the message.”

I’m starting to sound like my lawyer.

“But he’s got to be objective,” Patrick says. “Which means he’s gonna have to say stuff you won’t want him to say.”

“Patrick.” I put my hands on his knees and catch his eyes. “I trust the Lees. And it’s really the only place where Benny and I can both go and feel totally comfortable. It’s the best-case scenario in a worst-case situation.”

He sighs and wraps his arms around me. “I just don’t want anyone else to hurt you,” he murmurs against my hair.

I turn my head and press my mouth against his, shivering when his teeth graze my lower lip. We don’t talk for a long time. There’s no MetaReel, no parents, no lawyers. Goose bumps spread across his arms when I touch him.

“God, I want you,” he whispers, gripping my hips.

He pulls the covers over us, and it’s like we’re back in our fort. My universe shrinks in size; all that exists are his hands, his lips, his tongue, his breath.

I can’t think, I just want want
want
, this heat in me turning to fire. Patrick’s eyes ask a question, and I nod. I’m so
so
ready for this. He kisses me as his hand reaches to his bedside table.

I think about the last time this almost happened and how I’d written about it in my journal.
Which my mother read
. I still feel Patrick’s lips on mine, but it’s like I’m not here anymore. A cold wind blows through me, and my body shuts down, scattering the embers of the fire that had been licking every inch of my skin.

I gently slide out from under him. Why did that world always have to muscle its way into everything?

He pulls the blanket back and looks down at me, his eyes searching my face. “What’s wrong?” he asks. Soft, low.

I shake my head. “Nothing. I just…” I bite my lip in embarrassment. “Um.”

He kisses my nose, my forehead, my eyelids.

“Should we slow down?” he murmurs. He kisses my neck and the flat of his hand on my bare stomach makes it impossible to think clearly.

Slow down?
No. No. Hell.

I cover my face with my hands. “Yeah. But I don’t want to. Slow down. It’s just…”

I don’t know how to explain what it would feel like to be so close to him and then have to return to the MetaReel cameras and the vast desert of uncertainty that is my future.

“I’d have to go back. Like, right after. And the cameras and I—”

He pulls me against him. “I get it.” He sighs into my neck. “I really do. It’s just … damn.”

He blushes, and I put my hands on either side of his face. “You are so freakin’ cute when you get all bashful,” I whisper.

His eyes are glassy, hungry, and he swallows as my arms twist around his neck. “I can say with complete honesty that I have never wanted anything so badly in my life as I want you right now.”

It’s my turn to blush.

“Now who’s bashful?” he teases.

There’s the clang of the garage door opening, and he turns around and buries his face in a pillow and groans.

I let out a shaky laugh. “Guess it’s a good thing we didn’t…”

“Yeah.” He gives me a wistful look. “Rain check?”

I nod.

“We might want to put our clothes back on before my mother comes up here.”

I look at the pile on the floor. “I suppose that would be the proper etiquette.”

We dress hurriedly, and I throw my hair into a messy bun. I check my cell phone—time to go.

“Well, I hate to be
that
girl, but I better leave before my own mother gets home.”

She’d been doing book signings and promotional stuff in Phoenix, and her flight is supposed to get in sometime in the next hour.

“Okay. But wait.” Patrick opens his desk drawer, and when he turns around, he’s holding a small jewelry box. His grabs my hand and places the box on my palm. His eyes dance as I stare at the black velvet. “Open it.”

My hands shake a little as I pull back the top. Inside is an antique gold ring with a small, intricately cut oval amethyst shining in its center.

I look at the ring. I look at Patrick. I look back at the ring. Patrick chuckles and wraps his arms around my waist, pulling me closer.

“I didn’t know how to top Matt, but I thought this could do the trick.” His lips graze my ear. “Will you go to the winter formal with me?”

“Um.
Yes
.” I shake my head. “Patrick, this is too—”

He stops me with a kiss. “No, it’s not. It’s a reminder.”

“Of what?”

“That on February nineteenth, you’ll be free.” He touches the amethyst—my birthstone—then pulls the ring out of its velvet home and slips it onto my middle finger. It’s a perfect fit, which isn’t surprising; my boyfriend is a details kind of guy. “And it’s to remind you that we still have a sunrise to run into after graduation, remember?”

Graduation. Him going to school in New York, probably, and me going … I push the thought away and instead stare down at my ring. The purple gem is a shimmering, deep pool of color.

“It’s beautiful. You’re crazy, but it’s beautiful. I love it.” I reach up and press my lips to his. “I love
you
.”

He grins. “But the real question is … will it match your dress?” He pretends to look very serious as he asks this.

I give him an arch look. “I guess you’ll have to find out on February fourteenth.” The winter formal is on Valentine’s Day, naturally.

“I can’t wait.” He leans in for another kiss, but I gasp as a horrible thought crosses my mind. “Shit.”

Patrick raises his eyebrows.

“My mom,” I explain. “Ohmygod. Can’t you see her and Chuck insisting that you and Matt pick Benny and me up at the house?”

Patrick heaves a sigh and twines his fingers through mine. “I guess I have to meet her sometime.” He takes in my strained expression, and his eyes crinkle up. “Is it true the camera really adds ten pounds?”

“Patrick. Seriously!”

His face grows thoughtful. “Chloe, I really don’t care. Honestly. I spent a year wanting to be with you, thinking you hated me half the time because you hardly ever talked to me. Now we’re together, and the way I feel about you…” He looks down and absently plays with a lock of my hair. “I’m perfectly fine declaring it to the whole world.”

“I hope you mean that in the literal sense,” I say.

His eyes meet mine. “I do.”

*   *   *

“Nice. More than nice. You look amazing,” says Lexie™.

This is seriously high praise. My sister would never, ever tell me something this nice unless it were true. I twirl around in my vintage 1920s dress, savoring its snug fit and shimmering beadwork. It’s a deep royal purple (to match my ring) with black accents.

“You sure?”

“Oh, yeah. If we were lesbians and you weren’t my sister … okay, scratch that. I really shouldn’t say stuff like that when cameras are right downstairs.”

I laugh and, on impulse, give her a hug. Her body goes stiff, but she puts her arms around me. We haven’t hugged for at least five years.

“Thanks for getting me ready, Lex.”

She pulls away and adjusts the black shimmery beaded necklace that’s looped around my neck twice and takes another look at my ring.

“Are you
sure
you’re not engaged?”

I swat at her with my beaded evening bag. “Yes! God.” My cheeks flush, and she hands me her favorite lipstick.

“Lose it, and I’ll kill you,” she warns.

I put it in my bag just as the doorbell rings.

“Dude, I don’t know what is more exciting—that Matt’s actually going to pin a boutonniere on Benny or that I’m
finally
going to meet the enigmatic Patrick Sheldon.”

I shiver just hearing his name, and she shakes her head. “Oh, you’ve got it bad.”

We meet Benny in the hallway, and I squeal when I see him in his tux. “You look so hot!”

He grins. “And you look like you’re going to a speakeasy. I
love
this!”

“Benton™! Bonnie™! The boys are here,” Mom calls up the stairs.

“The
boys
. Classic,” says Lex.

We start walking, but she holds up her phone. “Wait! Say ‘condoms’!” We start laughing, and she snaps the photo. “Got it. Let’s go.”

My heart pinches a little as I think about how much closer the three of us have gotten over the past month or so. I know she’s going to feel betrayed that we saw the lawyer without her. I don’t even want to think about how hurt she’ll be.

But first things first; Patrick is about to make his television debut.

“Hi, Matt!” I hear Mom downstairs, fussing over him. “And
you
must be Patrick!”

I don’t like the way she says
you
, but when I reach the bottom of the stairs, she’s giving him a genuine smile. Patrick looks toward me, and his mouth sort of drops into an O. I’m sure the cameras are zooming in.

I wish MetaReel wasn’t filming this moment, but he’s so freaking sexy I almost don’t care. I rush down the stairs and throw my arms around him, and he laughs into my neck.

I pull back and take in his black suit with its pencil-thin black tie. Wow. “Hi.”

He smiles, ignoring the cameras like he ignores 98 percent of the Taft population. “Hi.”

I turn to the crowd that’s giggling and ogling in the living room. “Patrick, this is … everyone. Everyone … Patrick.”

“Hi, Patrick!” shrieks Jazzy.

He grins, totally at ease. “You must be Jasmine™.”

Mom laughs. “Ah, so you’ve heard all about our resident loudmouth.”

“Kirk,” says Kirk, holding out his hand. Patrick hesitates for a slight moment—I’m probably the only one who notices—then he shakes it.