Competing With the Star (Star #2)

by Krysten Lindsay Hager

  Only like fresh dew on a mountain top of rugged manliness. “You’re fine. I’m just uncomfortable knowing my dad is, like, two rooms away.”

  “Yeah, but this is a big game against the Bears, so I’m guessing he’s going to be one hundred percent focused on how the Lions play and not on us. Partly because he told me he has money riding on this game,” he said, smiling.

  I tried to relax and Nick put his arm around me. He leaned his head against mine. I could see our reflection in the patio doors and we looked like the perfect couple. Relaxed, happy, and very comfortable together. Wait…too comfortable? Was Simone right? Were we some boring old couple? No, this was nice—this was safe. I liked this. Why did I let my brain wander into these areas?

  “This is so awesome,” he said, taking a pretzel. “I love that we can just hang out together and be chill.”

  “Yup.” Okay, he was happy, I was happy. Shut up, brain, you’re done for the night.

  “I love that we’re not like those couples with all the crazy drama and stuff going on. You know how they’re fighting one minute and wild about each other the next?”

  And back to overthinkersville we go.

  “I dunno. Some of those couples have sparks or whatever,” I said.

  “Maybe. I just like how we are.” He squeezed my shoulder. “I guess since everything changed with my grandpa, I kind of appreciate having things be calm—just chill, you know?”

  Was that what this was about? Reagan was so up and down and he was craving something calmer? So did he really like me or what I represented? Shut up, brain!

  I convinced myself to focus on him and the game and we had a great time. He left when the game ended and gave me a kiss when I walked him to the door.

  “I’ll call you later,” he said, and kissed me again.

  I went to do my homework when Charlotte texted me.

  Charlotte: I was thinking about you and Nick and I really think you should just ask him if he liked Simone and get it all out in the open. The truth is always the best way to go. TTYL.

  I sat there thinking about that. Char had never had a boyfriend so she had no prior experience dealing with it, but what she said made sense. Then the phone rang and Nick’s name flashed on the caller ID.

  “Hey, cutie,” he said when I answered. The first time he had ever called me that I swooned. Now I wondered why I didn’t get called beautiful like I had heard him call Reagan back when they were dating.

  “Did you get your homework done?” he asked.

  No, I sat here going over whether or not you still have a thing for a former TV star I could never compete with.

  “Pretty much. You?”

  “Yup. All finished.”

  “Do you sometimes wonder if people ever stop loving each other?” I asked.

  “Huh? Is something weird going on with your parents?” he asked.

  “No, I just was listening to this song tonight and it was saying that you never stop loving someone and it got me thinking.”

  “Okay…well, I guess I don’t know.”

  “What do you think about it though?”

  “I’ve only been in love, like, once, so it doesn’t exactly make me an expert,” he said.

  Was he talking about Reagan or Simone, or some other girlfriend? My gut told me not to go along with this line of questioning, but my mouth had other ideas.

  “Do you still care about that person?” I asked.

  “Well, yeah.”

  My heart stopped. I hadn’t expected him to say that and I also didn’t expect myself to follow that up with another stupid probing question.

  “Did you ever have a crush on Simone?” I said. I couldn’t believe I had blurted it out.

  “Why are you asking me this?”

  “Did you? Yes or no?” I asked, biting the inside of my lip.

  “Well…yeah, a long time ago. I liked her, but she was going out with someone else and she wasn’t into me anyway.”

  “So if it weren’t for Chase or Connor or whomever, you two would be together?”

  “Hadley, why are you asking these questions? Honestly, I don’t know. She has always been into guys older than her, so no, I doubt it. I think she just saw me as like a brother or a friend. We never dated. Ever.”

  “But you wanted to.”

  “Sort of, but that was before I ever met you.”

  “Did you…were you in love with her?”

  “Hadley, why does this matter? It’s in the past. I’m with you now,” he said.

  “I need to know.”

  “Yeah, I guess…”

  My hand acted independently of my brain and hit end call. I sat there staring at my phone as my heart pounded so loud my ears were vibrating. Nick called me back, but I couldn’t bring myself to answer. He had been in love with her and he said earlier that he had only been in love once. It was one thing if she was his first crush, or even his first love, but his only love? That I couldn’t handle right now—or maybe ever. The truth was supposed to answer all my questions and instead all I felt was hurt and regret that I ever asked in the first place.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Two days passed and Nick hadn’t called again. I couldn’t blame him. After all, I had pushed for him to be honest and then had bailed on him. I’m sure he was mad at me for telling him he could tell me the truth and then I punished him for it—and he would be right. I couldn’t handle the icky feelings, and instead of being a big girl and dealing with them, I came home from school and retreated into the world of books. A world where people were kidnapped, jewels were stolen, but nobody’s heart ever got broken because in my favorite series, The Raven Chronicles, Raven’s boyfriend, Fernando, was ever faithful and loyal and would never even look at another girl. He was the perfect book boyfriend. In other words, he was fictional and didn’t exist.

  I saw I had a text from Simone. Oh great, maybe she was asking for my blessing to go out with Nick, or if I was still planning to go to Watson High School next year so she could make out with him in a different hallway from my locker.

  Simone: Are you mad at me? Nick said you’re upset because you found out he used to like me.

  Oh fabulous. He told her the whole gross story. Well, of course he did, seeing as how he was always over with her clique and he could tell the love of his life anything.

  Me: Whatever. It’s not important.

  Simone: He said he hasn’t talked to you in days because you hung up on him and won’t return his messages.

  Me: It’s not a big deal.

  Simone: It is to him. You hurt him. You know I don’t like him, right?

  Me: Did you ever?

  Simone: Can we talk about this on the phone? I’m calling you.

  I had no choice but to pick up.

  “Okay, I’m going to be honest with you,” Simone said after I answered the phone. “He was super crazy about me and honestly, it freaked me out a little. And did I think about going out with him? Not right away, but yeah. I thought about it, but he only started to look cute to me once he was with you. I know that sounds super bad, but I didn’t notice him until you guys were a thing.”

  “What?” I asked. It felt like my stomach plummeted several stories down.

  “Well, once you guys stopped seeing each other, he moped around and it was like he didn’t notice I existed anymore—you know, in that way. He would ask me advice on what to do, but he wasn’t, you know, all staring at me like he used to. And even though he was seeing Reagan, I knew he wasn’t over you. Then, when it looked like you guys were over for good, I thought about it, but then you got back together and I don’t go after other people’s boyfriends,” she said. “I never wanted you to know all that, but he and I never got together.”

  “But you still like him.”

  “He does seem like the perfect boyfriend, but I realized the only reason I was into him was because how he was acting with you. That’s why I liked him, but then it hit me that it wouldn’t necessarily be like that with me and him. You can
’t recreate the same relationship two other people had. He likes you in that way and no matter how much I may want a guy to feel that way toward me, it’s not going to happen because that’s how he feels about you.”

  “But he admitted he was in love with you.”

  “He did?” she asked, sounding shocked.

  Oh lovely, I just alerted her to the fact that her knight in shining armor was in love with her. How dumb could I get? I seriously needed to use my brain before I just blurted crap out.

  “Are you sure? Because he didn’t act that way when he was telling me how upset he was over you guys not talking anymore. Maybe you misunderstood?” she asked.

  “Maybe.” And maybe rainbows would shoot out of my phone and a leprechaun riding a unicorn would slide down it and bring me a pot of gold.

  “Would you just call him?” she said. “If for no other reason than to get his moody butt to shut up over what went wrong.”

  “Yeah, I dunno. Maybe,” I said, clearing my throat.

  “Hadley, once you and I became friends, I didn’t even do that cutesy, dumb flirting he and I used to do as a joke. I wouldn’t do that to you. Chase used to flirt with girls behind my back all the time and I know how bad it hurts, so I’d never do that to anyone, especially a friend,” she said. “Besides, I’m with Chase again, so no worries.”

  Well, if she was with Chase, then she’d have no interest in Nick. I was safe.

  “I need you to believe me on this,” she said. “I don’t want to lose you as a friend. Sometimes I feel like you’re the only one I can tell stuff to and I want to make sure you don’t think I’d betray you in any way.”

  “I believe you,” I said. “It just hurts that he liked you more than me.”

  “Where did you get that idea from?”

  “Well, everyone said he was crazy about you and then the whole thing where he admitted he was in love with you kinda sealed it.”

  “Girl, if you could only hear how he talks about you. Like, ‘Did I tell you Hadley came to the nursing home to meet my grandpa, isn’t she the sweetest girl?’ Or how about, ‘Hadley sent me the cutest text.’ I hear that a zillion times a day and he acts like you invented the smiley face that looks all flirty and that he’s the only guy in the world who has ever been sent that one. Trust me, he likes you and I don’t want to take it any further, just trust me when I say to call him. Okay?”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “If you don’t, I’ll tell Morgan she should ask him out.”

  “Fine.”

  “I’m at Pilar’s right now and he’s in the basement playing video games with Kevin, so I will know if you don’t call. I am going down there right now to get Kevin out of the room and then you will call him—got it?” she said. “I’ll text you the second he is alone.”

  She hung up and a minute later texted for me to call now.

  Great, now I could find out what it was like to feel like second best. No wonder Reagan and Pilar were frenemies—who could tell which one Lucas had liked first? At least my parents knew they were each other’s first love. Must be nice. I should have found a boyfriend back in kindergarten before he shared crayons with another girl and fell for her over the finger paints.

  “Hello?” Nick answered.

  “Hi.”

  “Hadley? How are you?” he asked.

  “Fine. I talked to Simone.”

  “Why?” he asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Why did you talk to her? About what?”

  “About what went on with you guys,” I said.

  “Okay, so you had to take her word over mine when I told you we never went out?” he asked.

  “That’s not what we talked about.”

  “What else is there to say about that?”

  “You don’t get it. It’s not about if you two actually went out, it’s about how you felt about her that was bothering me. Never mind, you’re just going to say I’m being oversensitive about this, and maybe I am, but I can’t help how I feel and I couldn’t hold it back. You said you liked me because I was honest with you, so I had to let you know what was going on inside my stupid, overthinking brain,” I said as my cheeks flushed.

  “So you’re upset because I used to have feelings for her and didn’t tell you?”

  “No, I’m…never mind. It’s not worth getting into.”

  “If it’s upset you this much, then it’s worth getting into,” he said. “And yeah, I want you to be able to tell me anything. I know you’re hurt over this, but to me, it’s all in the past.”

  I took a deep breath. “But you said you’ve only been in love once and it hurts to hear that you liked her so much.”

  “Hadley, I was in love the way a person gets over a celebrity or something—like Asia and Simone get over that Josh guy, who is seriously old enough to be their father—that’s just weird. Anyway, it was some crush thing and maybe I worded it wrong when we were talking about it, because she wasn’t who I was talking about when I said I had only been in love once.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Remember how things got super weird at the fireworks?” he asked.

  How could I forget? It had been imprinted on my brain. “Yeah.”

  “Everything was going great and then you came out of the bathroom a different person and started talking about how Chase was the hottest guy there and hurt my feelings. Then you walked off and I was all worried about you that you were lost and alone. And then I found you with some other guy,” he said.

  “But I told you, I was upset over what I heard about you having a crush on Simone.”

  “Yeah, which you could have just shared with me and we could have cleared this up a long time ago. But what you didn’t know was that night I had planned to tell you something.”

  “About your feelings for Simone?” I asked.

  “No, I had this whole thing planned that right before the fireworks started. I was going to tell you something I had been feeling.”

  “What?”

  “I was going to tell you I loved you,” he said.

  It felt like a volt of electricity shot through my stomach. My arms felt tingly.

  “You were?” I asked.

  “Yeah, and I’ve never told anybody that before because I never knew for sure I was,” he said. “But then you got all weird on me and I wasn’t sure what to make of all that. I thought maybe I liked you so much I made you out to be this perfect girlfriend who didn’t actually exist.”

  “That’s what I thought about you until I heard that stuff in the bathroom and got all confused and upset.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Mmhmm, that I fell for some fantasy guy or got caught up or something,” I said.

  “Uh-huh. I guess we’re a lot alike.”

  I wondered if he still felt like he loved me or if he realized that was just some passing feeling. But this emotion was suddenly overtaking me. All the feelings I had pushed down were starting to come back and I knew what I had known the night before all the drama started—that I was in love with him. Maybe I needed to let him know that. After all, he had felt safe enough to share all of this with me, so maybe I needed to step out and say it. But could I say it first? And if he said it back, would I always wonder if he was just saying it because I said it first? Oh, shut up, stupid, overthinking brain! This is why people like Simone and Valeria had all these boyfriends—because they just acted and didn’t analyze everything to death and miss their opportunities.

  I took a deep breath, opened my mouth, and said, “I love you,” just as he said something to me.

  “Wait, did I hear you right or did the phone just echo back what I said to you?” he asked.

  “Just to be clear, what did you say to me?”

  “Well, I said, ‘I love you,’ and I thought I heard your voice saying it at the exact same time, but did I hear that for real?” he asked.

  “That’s what I said.”

  “Wait, so you told me you loved me at the exac
t moment I said it to you?” he asked.

  “Yup.”

  “And you didn’t just say it because I told you I had been planning to? I mean, are you just saying it or what?”

  I burst out laughing. “I love how you’re overthinking this, because I am too.”

  “We’re kind of perfect for each other,” he said.

  “I guess so.”

  “I do love you, Hadley,” he said.

  My heart felt like it was swelling up. “I love you too.”

  “And you’re not mad at me anymore over that stupid little crush or whatever it was?” he asked.

  “No, I’m sorry. I…”

  “What? Hadley, you can tell me anything. That’s why we work—we’re best friends too.”

  “Don’t laugh at me, but…I’ve never had a serious boyfriend before—just you and Will, so I’ve never had to deal with jealous ex-girlfriends like Reagan and awkward moments like at the pizza place or crushes—especially crushes on TV stars. I mean, it’s one thing that Morgan and you used to flirt—that’s intimidating enough with her being popular, but Simone used to be on TV. That’s really hard to compete with.”

  “But it’s not an issue. Honest. And I didn’t know this was your first serious relationship. I guess it makes sense you would be a little weirded out by the fact that Simone was a star.”

  “Yeah, and remember when her actress friend, Lauren Gere, came to town and she was into you?”

  “Oh right. Lauren sent me a ton of pics of her in bathing suits.”

  Trust me, I hadn’t forgotten, and not helping, Nicholas. Not helping. “Uh-huh.”

  “But I didn’t go out with her or anything.”

  My stomach still felt a little off. “Okay, well, imagine if you found out I had a chance with Jack Brogger while we were going out.”

  “All right, now that you brought him into it, I kinda see where you’re going with this. I’d probably throw myself off the pier if I had to compete with Jack. Although I have to say, Jack is way more famous than Simone ever could have dreamed about being. Plus, he’s loaded, and even I’ve lusted after that car of his he drives around in downtown.”