by Dahlia Adler
“Nate!”
“What?” He shot me an innocent look. “Don’t pretend you like them.”
“Dana and Leni?” asked Van. “They’re nice. What’s wrong with them?” She turned to me. “You don’t like them?”
I shifted uncomfortably in my seat. Why was Nate doing this? He seemed almost mad at me, but I had no idea what I’d done to earn that. Wasn’t this pretty much what he’d been begging me to do for him for months?
“They’re fine,” I said, shooting Nate a quick look of death. I was relieved to see a waiter approaching as I did so. “Hey, food’s here!”
Thank God. Plus, I was pretty damn hungry by then. I had to sit on my hands to stop myself from reaching out to pluck a nacho from the huge platter we’d ordered before the waiter could even place it on the table.
“Mmm, that looks awesome,” said Van. “We’ve barely had anything to eat all day.”
There was that “we” again. Not that I noticed.
Liam took a chip loaded with absolutely everything imaginable and devoured it in one bite. “Ohhh, that’s good,” he moaned as he swallowed it down with a sip of water. “Nachos are seriously up there on my list of things I could eat every damn day for the rest of my life.”
“I love that all your favorite foods are the kinds of things that could be sold at roadside stands,” I teased. “I remember when we went out to dinner at some French place to celebrate Van’s first successful audition—”
“Aaah, for that totally stupid doll commercial!” Van giggled. “So mortifying to think about it now.”
“Aw, it was a cute commercial,” I assured her. “Anyway, remember when your parents fed you escargot without telling you what it was and you absolutely loved it until they mentioned after dinner that it was snails?”
She moaned. “I remember throwing up all over the parking lot, that’s what I remember.”
I laughed. “I remember that too, especially since I was so freaked out by the fact that you actually liked them until that. That’s how I knew you were meant to be a star—you obviously had expensive, fancy taste.”
“Oh, really? It wasn’t my stunning, natural charisma?”
“Is that the same stunning, natural charisma that convinced me to cut all the hair off my Barbie dolls when we were four?”
Liam laughed. “You don’t even let me pick movie snacks and you let her dictate the hairstyles of your favorite toys?”
I shrugged innocently and snatched a cheesy chip from the bottom of the pile. “I eventually got her back by giving her a terrible haircut during a sleepover when we were eight. Is that the sort of revenge you would like, Mr. Holloway?”
“I remember that!” Van shrieked. “I had an audition two days later, too! I think that was the maddest I’ve ever been at you.”
As we joked around and stuffed our faces, Nate eventually warmed up and joined the conversation, and for a minute, I thought we might actually end up having a good night.
Of course, that’s exactly when the flashbulbs swooped in.
“Vanessa! Liam! Over here!”
“Here! Over here!”
A microphone was thrust in my face. “Is it true that you’re really just friends and they’re the ones who are dating?”
I was tempted to say “no comment,” but this was exactly why we were here tonight. “Yes,” I said, pasting a smile on my face and recalling the lines we’d practiced. “As you can see, I have my own boyfriend.” I wrapped a possessive arm around Nate’s shoulders. “I guess people just can’t wait until Daylight Falls starts to get their fill of teen drama!”
The reporter laughed, and several others crowded around, firing questions in our direction, but after we’d established the general party line, they switched over to focusing solely on Van and Liam, leaving me and Nate with nothing to do but watch.
“This is gross,” Nate muttered as he dragged a chip through the guac, drawing angry lines in the chunky green dip.
“Then don’t eat it,” I said sweetly through the fake smile plastered on my face.
He snorted. “Yeah, because I’m talking about the food, Duncan.”
I took a sip from my water glass, peering at Van and Liam’s intertwined hands over the rim. It really was gross. They’re just playing pretend, I reminded myself as I let a piece of ice fall into my mouth and bit down on it. They’re actors. It’s what they do.
Obviously Nate wasn’t going to help distract me from the train wreck in front of me, so I decided that the best way to face it was head on. If I saw how clearly fake they were being, it would remind me just how staged and stupid this whole thing was, right?
“So, lovebirds, tell us, what do you do in your free time?” asked a balding reporter wearing a pair of waytoo-tight pinstriped pants.
Van flashed her perfect “no question is too stupid” smile. “Same things as every other couple. We have dinner out with our friends, we see movies, we go shopping, we go to the gym…”
My eyes were threatening to roll out of their skull. Liam would never go shopping voluntarily, and he absolutely hated going to the gym. If I needed to be convinced this was all fake, that certainly—
“You guys are so cute,” said another photographer, this one a woman with bleached-blond hair and a crooked front tooth. “I mean, look at you two! You can’t keep your hands off each other!”
Huh? I interrupted my mental pep talk to take a better look at Van and Liam. Sure enough, she’d settled into the crook of his arm with an ease and comfort that made it look like she practically lived there, and her perfectly manicured hand curved around his denim-clad kneecap without a hint of self-consciousness. Their words might’ve rung falser to me than a Real Housewife’s boobs, but their gestures…
“Excuse me,” I said to absolutely nobody as I slipped out of my seat and walked to the chicas’ room in the back of the restaurant. I wasn’t sure whether I was about to cry or throw up my nachos, but both were seriously bad choices for public viewing.
A minute later, the door pushed open, and I scrambled into a stall to hide, but not fast enough.
“Duncan?”
“Nate! What the hell are you doing in the ladies’ room?”
“Uh, coming to find you, obviously? Now can we please get out of here?”
I examined my face in the mirror. Now-streaky eyeliner? Check. Mascara everywhere? Yup. Red and blotchy mess? Of course.
“Just give me a minute.” I attacked my face with a damp paper towel, but though the black streaks disappeared, the blotchiness did not. I blew out a breath and exited the bathroom with Nate anyway.
“Are you really going to deny that this is killing you?” Nate challenged.
“Just shut up, Donovan.” I pressed my fingertips to my temples. My head was pounding, I couldn’t think, and he really wasn’t making things better.
“You need to stop this,” he continued, ignoring me completely. “You obviously can’t handle it.”
“Just shut up!” I repeated, whispering fiercely. “Stop pretending you give a shit. You’re just pissed because you have no idea how to talk to the girl you’ve been fantasizing about going on a date with for God knows how long. I’m sorry you haven’t enjoyed your evening, but stop trying to make it about me. She’s the one you need to be working on.”
“I know that,” he spat. “But…” The venom seemed to drain out of him as quickly as it entered, and suddenly he looked strange and young and helpless.
“But what?” I pushed. We’d been gone from the table long enough, and I really didn’t want this argument to drag on any longer than it had to. Not that I could imagine returning to my seat. I felt overheated and tightly wound and in no mood to chow down on copious amounts of beef and cheese.
“But she’s not the one I care about, Ally.”
“Wha—Oh. Oh.”
He looked down at the floor. “Yeah.”
“Nate, you can’t… I mean, I can’t…”
“I know,” he snapped. “Trust me, I’m no
t any happier about it than you are.”
“Hey, don’t get mad at me! I told you I was with—” I looked around to make sure no one was listening. “—Liam,” I finished, dropping my voice just in case.
Nate snorted. “Yeah, I see how much you’re ‘with’ him,” he said, obnoxious air quotes and all. “He’s in there right now making out with your best friend for everyone to see, and you’re hiding in the bathroom with a fake boyfriend who actually likes you. How is it possible that you operate in a world where all of this makes sense to you?”
“How is it possible that you like me when you have the world’s lowest opinion of me?” I countered. “God, it’s like everything out of your mouth is about how stupid I am—”
“Not stupid,” Nate corrected, “just naïve. Incredibly, incredibly naïve. Why do you even bother with this shit? They’re not real people, Duncan! She’s not your best friend, and he’s not your boyfriend. They’re two people who get paid to be fake. Isn’t that how you’ve always described Hollywood?”
“They’re different,” I insisted, though it felt ridiculous that I even had to state it. It sounded so weak, and yet I knew it was true. At least for me.
“Sure. Okay. If he’s your boyfriend, he’ll be taking you to prom, right? He’ll come to whatever graduation party inevitably gets thrown at someone’s house, and he’ll go to the beach with us over the summer, and make sure you’re wearing your sunscreen, and hold your hand when you guys walk down the street, and—”
“Enough, Nate. I get it.”
“Do you?”
I didn’t bother to dignify him with a response. After a minute, he reached into his pocket, dug out his wallet, and pulled out a few bills. “Here,” he said, pressing them into my hand. “I’m leaving. Say goodbye to the golden couple for me, will you?”
He started to walk off but stopped when I called his name. “Nate, come on! You can’t leave.”
He turned slowly. “You’re kidding me, right? Why the fuck would I stay? I hate watching you watching him. You hate watching him with her. And if he likes you as much as you think he does, then he probably hates this too. I’m not you, Duncan. I don’t thrive on misery.”
Ouch. Not that I could really argue with him about the success of this evening. But I couldn’t let him leave—it would ruin everything.
“You’re fucking kidding me,” he said slowly. “You actually want to stay.”
“Apparently you’re aware of just how infrequently I get to go out with my boyfriend,” I whispered fiercely, “so yeah, I’d like to stay. This was my idea, you know.”
“So stay.” He turned to walk out again, but I clamped a hand on his shoulder.
“I can’t stay without you. Just go, okay? I’ll meet you at your car and you can drive me home. I need to go say goodbye and pretend you weren’t feeling well so this doesn’t turn into a giant mess.”
He rolled his eyes. “Whatever.” He walked out the back, and I went up to the paparazzi-besieged table and said my dishonest goodbyes, ignoring both Van and Liam’s silent questions.
Two minutes later, I was in Nate’s passenger seat, buckling myself in for the world’s most awkward ride home.
* * * * *
The house was dark when I entered, but as soon as I flipped on the light in the kitchen, I saw my mom had left me a note on the counter. Apparently, my dad had been having a particularly rough night—she didn’t include any further details—so she’d dropped Lucy off at a friend’s and gone to stay at the hospital.
Huh. A house all to myself and absolutely no way to take advantage of that fact. Hopefully I could at least make up for the fact that I hadn’t actually gotten to eat my dinner. I changed into a pajama top and shorts, grabbed some baby carrots and hummus from the fridge, and flopped down onto the couch.
No sooner had I settled in and switched on an old episode of Sex and the City than my stupid phone rang. So much for getting my lousy night off my mind. I trudged to the kitchen counter where I’d left my clutch and unsnapped it to grab my phone.
Liam.
I was almost afraid to answer. I didn’t even know how I felt, really. Should I have felt guilty about everything with Nate? Angry for being put into the stupid position of watching him pretend to date my best friend? Angry at myself for the fact that I hadn’t asked him not to do it when I had the chance, and for coming up with tonight’s stupid idea?
I decided to answer with an expressionless “hey” and see where he took it from there.
“Can I come over?” he asked, skipping over any pleasantries.
I was considerably more surprised than I probably should’ve been. Then again, we were dating—sort of—and he’d never even been to my house. Just one more thing to add to Nate’s list of reasons our relationship was weird and possibly all in my head.
“Yeah, okay.” I gave him my address to put into his GPS and hung up.
I knew I probably should’ve made myself look cute and straightened up the house or whatever, but I just didn’t have the energy. I simply took my cell phone back to the couch with me and resumed eating carrots while I watched Carrie buy shoes that even I knew no one could possibly afford on a writer’s salary.
After about fifteen minutes, Liam called again, and I peeled myself off the couch and padded over to the front door to let him in. He looked gorgeous, as always, but he also looked nervous, and I couldn’t help wondering if he’d come to tell me that we were over already.
He didn’t kiss me hello, which I took as a bad sign, and I stepped aside to let him in without a word. It was strange, having him in my house. Stranger than having any old boyfriend in your house should be, I imagined. Liam had his own apartment, his own career, his own real life, and here he was, standing in the house I still shared with my parents and Lucy. The house in which I did chores and homework and danced around to Queen when no one was watching. Because while his average nights were spent at clubs or on set, mine were spent doing problem sets and essays and letting my little sister paint my nails.
I started to walk to the couch, but after a few steps, I realized he wasn’t following. Whatever he’d come to say, it seemed he’d come to say it quickly and then bolt. Fine. If that was how he wanted to handle it, that was okay with me. Another episode was coming on in five minutes anyway, and there was still plenty of hummus.
The silence was killing me. “Just say it, Liam.”
He shifted uncomfortably, digging his hands even further into the pockets of his Diesel jeans, the ones that made his butt look extra cute. Way to add insult to injury. “I’m sorry.”
I shrugged, hoping to express an apathy I didn’t remotely feel. “It’s cool. We were obviously a ridiculous idea to begin with. No hard feelings.” I turned around again, hoping he’d let himself out before the tears pricking at my eyelids actually gained some movement.
“Wait, what?” He reached out and turned me around. “You’re breaking up with me?”
Huh? “I thought you were breaking up with me,” I replied, utterly confused now.
“Jesus, no, I just meant I was sorry that tonight ended up being such a train wreck. It was a stupid idea, and I’m sorry I let Van and Jade talk me into all of this. Real or fake, I don’t want to be with anyone but you. Unless…” He scratched his head and gave me a look like he expected me to finish his sentence.
“So we’re in agreement then,” I said, fingering a button on his navy-blue shirt, another one of my favorites.
He let out a sigh of relief, and in response, so did I. We both laughed lightly, and then he grazed my cheek with his fingertips and our mouths found better things to do.
I pulled away after a minute. “Wanna come up to my room?” I asked, then paused. “I swear that wasn’t the line it sounded like.”
“That’s a shame,” he teased, looking me up and down appreciatively before following me upstairs.
Once there, though, he seemed more interested in checking out his surroundings than in making another move. “You weren
’t kidding about being a classic rock fan,” he observed, taking in the posters on my walls along with my unfortunately modest vinyl collection.
“I find there’s little that’s not made better with the Rolling Stones playing in the background.” I watched him examine the framed pictures of me and my family that lined the top of my bookcase, the collection of classics on the shelf beneath them, and the photo strips of me and Van tucked into the mirror.
“Your room looks exactly as it should,” he said, making it sound like a compliment. “I like it. It’s like being in Allyworld.”
“Like Disney World, only Ally-er?”
He grinned. “Exactly.” He walked over to my desk and glanced at the piles of books and papers that littered it. “Please tell me you haven’t been spending your break doing work.”
“Just a little bit,” I conceded, wondering what he’d look at next.
“Right, right. I forgot you went to the beach today.” He walked over and curled one hand around my waist, then used the index finger of his other hand to tap the tip of my nose. “The source of the very cute freckles.”
I blushed and ducked away. “Stop that. I hate them.”
“Well, I like them,” he replied, “and I hope to spend a lot more time looking at them.” Despite his flirty words and the way his darkening eyes slowly traveled down my body before meeting my gaze, he made no move to touch me again. “Something tells me I’m not the only one who feels that way.”
I froze. “What are you talking about?” He couldn’t possibly know—
“Nate likes you, doesn’t he?”
Well, he might’ve been pretty but my boy wasn’t stupid. I bit my lip. “He thinks he does, yeah,” I said slowly.
“And you don’t?”
“I think he’s just confused,” I said dismissively, hoping I was correct.
“Or maybe you’re just irresistible,” Liam returned, taking a step toward me. He lifted up my chin and stroked my bottom lip with the tip of his thumb. “Seriously, Ally, I know you don’t realize how gorgeous you are, but don’t let your shortsighted vision of yourself get you caught off guard, okay? I know he’s your friend, but there’s something about that guy that’s just weird. He gets a little too angry on your behalf.”
