Something Real (35 page)

And I get a little weepy, which makes him smile, and I tell him that I love him,
God, do I love him
, and his lips smear the tears on my cheeks.

“I should have told you sooner,” he murmured, “but I was afraid you’d think I was saying it just because it was in the tabloid.”

“Hence the grand gesture?”

“Hence the grand gesture.”

I pull back from him a little. “But you realize
why
I did what I did, right? I wasn’t overreacting.”

His hands settle on either side of my waist, and I lean into him. It’s terrifying, caring about someone this much. To allow them to be the air you breathe.

“I know you weren’t,” he says. I reach up and brush his hair out of his eyes. “But I always knew this was a possibility.”

“But Columbia. This could jeopardize—”

“I don’t care about Columbia. I care about
you
.”

And of course this makes me all shivery, but there’s more I have to say.

“Patrick.”

He raises his eyebrows. “
Chloe
.”

“I just don’t know how we can…” I keep my eyes focused on the top button of his flannel shirt. “I want to be with you. More than anything, which, I don’t know, is maybe pathetic or unhealthy or whatever. But I don’t want cameras around, spying on us all the time.”

He rubs his hands down my arms. “I don’t want them around, either. We’ll figure it out.”

He’s not getting it. He has absolutely no clue how bad this is. Or how much worse it will get.

“How?” I say. “You’re going to get tired of this. All the sneaking around and hiding in janitor’s closets. I mean, we’ve never gone on a real date! And how embarrassing is it that your parents probably thought, for at least a second, that I
was
pregnant.”

He smiles. “I told my mom we were hoping for a girl, but that if we had a boy, we’d name him after my grandfather. I also mentioned you have lots of experience with children.”

“This isn’t funny,” I say, pushing him away. But when I crack a smile, he knows he’s won. He leans down and kisses my forehead.

“When you’re mad, your eyebrows do this”—he scrunches his for my benefit—“and I just want you to know that it’s damn sexy.”

And of course this makes me go all molten lava inside, but I bite my lip and glance away. I don’t want to ruin his grand romantic gesture, but there are real reasons why I broke up with him.

“Chloe, look at me.”

I’m afraid to look up, because when I do, I lose all rationality. When the Vultures are after you and one of the hugest corporations in America is trying to ruin your good name, the last thing you want to be is a starry-eyed girl in love. He tilts my chin up, his face serious.

“We’ll get through it,” he says. “I promise. Our friends will help us, just like your brother did tonight. And we’ll find a way to get you more protection from MetaReel and the paparazzi. Okay?”

I hesitate, then nod. I think his life was a whole lot better before I was in it, but I can’t voluntarily give him up a second time. “Okay.”

“Excellent.”

His arms wrap around me, and I lean my head against his chest, feeling overwhelmed and grateful and unbelievably happy. We stay like that for a few minutes, just listening to each other’s heart and lungs.

He looks down at me, his eyes warm and serious. “We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to—about your past—but I want you to know it doesn’t change the way I feel about you. Not at all.”

I hope someday I can tell him about the pills, but for now it’s enough to know that it doesn’t change anything between us. It feels right to have that secret out.

“Good,” I say. Then I shake my head and grin. “I can’t believe you’re here!”

“I couldn’t stay away any longer. The past few days were…” He trails off, and the look on his face says everything I wouldn’t let him say when he was trying to get through to me.

“I know,” I say. “Me too.”

I hear a door shut downstairs, and even though I know my door is locked, I glance at it, just to make sure.

“How did you get past the cameras and my parents?”

He smiles. “Ben timed it perfectly. The crew’s gone, and your parents were watching a movie. No one saw us, and he kept me away from the stationary cameras—which are freakin’ creepy, by the way.”

“Tell me about it. When did you guys plan this?”

He plays with my hair, twisting it around his fingers. “We’ve been talking about it pretty much since the moment you broke up with me.”

I bite my lip. “Patrick, I’m so sor—”

He puts a finger against my lips. “It’s not your fault. Or mine. We’re together now, that’s all that matters.”

I glance at the clock—it’s already after eleven. “How are you going to get home?”

“My parents think I’m at Max’s. I’ll go home after your parents leave the house tomorrow for the book signings. Unless…” He hesitates, his eyes so close that I can see the flecks of gold throughout the brown. “If you don’t want me to stay—”

There are footsteps down the hall, and I dash over to my desk lamp and turn it off, plunging the room into total darkness. The last thing I need is for my mom to come in for another one of her pep talks. We stand there, our hearts keeping time as the footsteps stop, then move past the door.

“I want you to stay,” I whisper. “Very much.”

“Excellent.”

It’s pitch-black, and we’re alone in my bedroom, and the door is locked, and he’s not going home until tomorrow afternoon. I lean my forehead on his chest and smile into the soft fabric. I can feel his heartbeat against my skin.

I’m the luckiest girl in the world.

“This is kind of a weird way to see my house for the first time,” I whisper.

“This room is really the only part I was interested in,” he says.

“Except it’s sort of hard to see in the dark.”

He nuzzles my neck. “I expect a proper tour in the morning.”

My eyes start to adjust to the darkness, and I notice the pile of blankets at our feet.

“What’s with the blankets? Did you think I’d make you sleep on the floor?”

He shrugs. “I was prepared for anything, but I was fairly certain I’d be able to convince you to let me share your bed.” The look he gives me sends a shower of goose bumps down my back. “Actually, I thought we could reclaim your lost childhood and build a fort. Ergo, blankets.”

I grin. “You’re serious?”

He grabs his backpack, then switches on the flashlight he took out of it. “Tell me you’re not thrilled at the prospect of constructing a one-of-a-kind architectural masterpiece with me.”

I grab a blanket. “I do have some experience in this arena, you know. In season seven, Benny and I turned our whole playroom into a fort using cardboard boxes and a parachute.”

Patrick cocks his head to the side. “Season seven … means when you were seven years old?”

I blush. “I told you my life is weird.”

“It is a little strange,” he admits.

We work by flashlight and a couple of candles I’d had lying around for decoration. I keep jumping every time I hear movement in the house, worried about how I’m going to explain fort making to my mom. Patrick, I’ve already decided, will have to hide in the closet if anyone knocks on my door. I kick his shoes under my bed to hide the boy-in-my-room evidence.

“What do you think?” he asks.

“Two thumbs up.”

Blankets drape over my desk chair, the hat rack in the corner, and underneath some books on my bookshelf. Patrick pulls back a thick woolen blanket with a Southwestern pattern and hands me the flashlight. “Ladies first.”

“One sec.” I walk over to my closet and feel around in the dark for the book I’d shoved behind a pile of shoes.

“What are you doing?” he whispers.

“I have a surprise for you.”

I clasp the book to me and smile at him as I duck inside our fort, my stomach snap, crackle, popping as I take in our hideaway. He throws me the pillows from my bed and a couple more blankets. I look at the side-by-side pillows, and every atom I’m made of flares up. Patrick crawls in, his eyes searching for mine in the dim little cocoon we’ve created. I bite my lip as he moves toward me, and he doesn’t stop crawling until his lips touch mine. We lie sideways on the floor, my head against a pillow, his propped up on an elbow.

I sit up and hand him the book. “Early Christmas present,” I say. “To assist in your architectural education.”

He looks at the cover, his eyes wide. “
Chloe
.”

“You love it,” I say, my voice smug. I knew he didn’t have it—it was expensive, and one of those things he’d probably always wanted but would never buy for himself.

“I do.”

I hold the flashlight as he turns the pages and whispers to me about titanium and deconstructivist design. Coming out of his mouth, it’s like he’s reciting love poems.

“It’s perfect,” he whispers, closing the book. “Thank you.”

For a while, we bask in being together, making shadow puppets and filling each other in on the past few days.

“Ben said your mom wasn’t really helping you deal with all the tabloid stuff.”

“We’re not exactly on speaking terms right now.”

“Because of last weekend, when you got grounded? You never told me what happened.”

I groan and lie on my back, staring at the colorful afghan above me. “It’s kind of embarrassing.”

Patrick reaches his hand to my cheek and gently turns it so that my eyes are parallel with his again. “Please?”

So I tell him about the extra cameras, how I threw the notebook. When I mention the slap and my mom calling me a bitch, his lips go razor thin.

“I’m sorry,” he says quietly.

I shake my head. “Seriously, it’s … don’t worry about it.”

“I want to get you out of here, Chlo. There’s gotta be something we can do.”

I scoot away from him and sit up, hands clasped in my lap. “There’s nothing
to
do. I’m on the show until I graduate.”

Patrick sits up, too, and puts his hands over mine. “Why?”

And I realize just how much I care for him, when I say, “Okay, don’t tell Benny I told you this.”

I can’t believe I’m telling someone something I wouldn’t tell my brother.

He nods.

“Chuck sort of … threatened me.”

“The producer guy?”

“Yeah.”

Patrick’s fingers tighten on mine. “What did he say to you?”

“I guess the contract my parents signed said that all of us kids would do the show, and that if even one of us drops out, MetaReel can cancel.”

Patrick shrugs. “So that’s good, right?”

I stare at him. “No. It would be my fault that this show they all love will be gone. And Chuck said he’d sue my family, and they’d go totally bankrupt with a billion kids—this would be
horrible
for them. My mom would never forgive me.”

“Do you think you could get a copy of that contract?”

I shake my head. “That’s … impossible.”

Patrick’s quiet for a while and then he says, “My dad’s a lawyer, you know. I mean, he doesn’t really practice anymore because he’s teaching so much, but—”

I lean over and kiss his cheek. “You are so good to me, and I know you want to help. But I’m not taking my parents to court.” My sigh sounds like an old woman’s. “It’s my fault we’re in this mess anyway.”

“What? No. It’s not.”

I nod. “I know this was really manipulative of Chuck, but when I was a kid and acting up because I was getting tired of doing the show, he told me that my behavior was stressing my parents out and that was why my dad was drinking so much and it would be my fault if they broke up. So I tried to be good, but I kept slipping into being this Bonnie™ that nobody liked. And it was
me
who caught my dad—which, actually, Chuck made happen, but still—and
me
who took those pills. And Chuck was right. They broke up.”

“What the hell? He can’t just say shit like that to a little girl.” It’s weird seeing Patrick look furious. All the angles of his face sharpen, and his posture gets perfect.

“I know, it’s screwed up. But he was kind of right. I mean, looking back, I can see how my behavior—”

“No,” he says, firmly. “None of that was your fault.”

I shake my head. “Maybe. Maybe not. But I owe my mom, even if she’s being heinous right now. I have to stick this out until graduation.”

“Chlo, you don’t owe her anything. You’re in an impossible situation.” Patrick moves closer to me, until I’m practically sitting in his lap.

I shiver, which is my body’s way of reminding me that this is the kind of conversation we can have when we’re not in a fort in my room late at night. I crawl into his lap, my legs straddling him. His eyes widen in surprise, and I put my lips close to his ear.