Chapter 17

       Derek and Emily picked me up at the airport Friday afternoon, and almost forty-eight hours later, they’re dropping me back off.

       Riding in Derek’s Jeep gives me a dé jà vu of my excursion to Griffith Park with Graham. I pull my hair into a ponytail and recall the pleasure of huddling together to watch the sunrise, and the feel of his mouth on my neck as he murmured you’re so beautiful. I’ve reread his note several dozen times, and only the fear of it being ripped from my grasp by a gust of wind keeps me from pulling it out now. Our three weeks are counting down.

       I didn’t know, last fall, in my back-and-forth skirmishes with Reid, that this is how it’s supposed to feel. Not relentless internal questions of should I give in or am I ready yet, not a constant feeling of defending my borders—but yearning for this next step, this connection. An inherent trust that it means everything it should mean.

       From the back seat, I watch Derek and Emily communicate without speaking, something they’ve probably learned to do of necessity in this open-air vehicle. Their hands are clasped over the center console—his strong, tan forearm brushing against her paler, fragile-looking skin. I can’t help but smile. Thanks to the Jeep and a host of new outdoor activities, Emily has actual tan lines. They’re the faintest tan lines ever, due to her liberal all-over use of sun block, but still.

       Derek has gotten my best friend into rock-climbing recently—something that made Mrs. Watson stop speaking to him for a week except for under-her-breath asides about danger and her baby girl and imminent death. Emily says he finally made a concerted effort to explain all the details of the pulley system and the fact that as a novice Emily was always hooked up to it, in the end convincing her mother that he would allow absolutely nothing to happen to the girl he loved.

       “It was all very sitcom-sappy, ” Emily told me Saturday morning as we lounged in her bed. “I told Derek he wasn’t allowed to speak to my mother that way—all that mushy stuff—which of course bonded them immediately. ” Her sly smile made me laugh out loud, and I wondered how Dad and Chloe would handle the news of Graham and me.

       By Friday night, photos of me with Reid outside LAX were plastered all over the Internet, along with rampant speculations about our possible relationship. “I figured that this crap falls under need-to-know, ” Emily sighed, turning her monitor to face me. The time of day he dropped me off, some sites insisted, confirmed the probability of our having spent the night together.

       I texted Graham so he wouldn’t be caught unaware, again, of a seemingly intimate photo of me with Reid. He texted back: Vultures. Thanks for letting me know.

       Emily wasn’t the only one who kept an eye out for incriminating photos of me. I should have known right away from Chloe’s patronizing questions over dinner last night that she’d discovered them, too, but my mind was so occupied with thoughts of Graham and his promises for our Skype-time later that I was running on auto-pilot answers and all but ignoring her.

       When she passed the vinaigrette, she said, “Emma, you sneaky thing … how was LA? ”

       I dribbled dressing over my salad, vowing to squeeze in a long run in the morning. “It was fine. Pretty clear this trip, actually, ” I said, alluding to LA weather and the always-welcome lack of haze.

       As I passed the bottle to Dad, Chloe gave him a self-satisfied see there? sort of look, which made him frown.

       “Everything is definitely clearer lately. ” This was a Chloe attempt at being cryptic, but nothing about my stepmother is ever obscure or even vaguely mysterious. Her thoughts and designs are transparent, unconstrained by silly social constructs like tact or poise. I’ve learned to count this as one of her positive traits, in the same way you know a shark is capable of biting your arm off because you can see the teeth.

       First, I registered the fact that she called me sneaky. And then the clearer comment.

       Recognition dawned. “Ah. You’ve seen photos. ” I turned to Dad’s concerned eyes. “You know how Dan said that the studio wants Reid and me to look like a couple until the premiere? Well, that’s what we’re doing—just so you know. Nothing is actually going on between us. ”

       “Why in the world not? ” Chloe was incredulous. “He’s gorgeous! ”

       Dad’s frown turned into a scowl. “For God’s sake, Chloe, I don’t want my daughter hooking up, or whatever, with that adolescent Casanova. ”

       I almost choked on a tomato hearing my father say hooking up, which he air-quoted.

       Chloe sighed heavily and rolled her eyes like she was twelve. “I’m just saying that since she’s abandoning the film industry, she’s not likely to get a shot at anyone like him ever again. ”

       “All the better! ” Dad countered, following that with a harrumph as he stabbed a forkful of salad and stuffed it in his mouth.

       I glared at both of them. “Excuse me. I’m sitting right here. And in case you’ve both forgotten, I’m a legal adult, and I’m perfectly capable of conducting my own affairs… such as they are. ” My face warmed, matched by Dad’s. Now probably wasn’t the time to bring up my new relationship with Graham. I cleared my throat. “I’m, uh, going to finish my salad in my room. ”

       Graham devoted time to me late each evening, but he was otherwise engaged in being a dad to Cara and studying for finals. He warned me that he’d be busy reviewing for exams and finishing up final edits on research papers over the coming week, and then his mouth quirked adorably. “But as of Friday, I’m all yours. ”

       ***

       I’m content to have something to distract me, even if it means hotel rooms, getting up before dawn, and spending time with Reid, driving around LA and the surrounding areas. There are a lot of hours to fill outside of the hour or so I’ll spend each night, swapping life stories with Graham and asking him in whispers to compose his alternate stories of us—fairytale lives we would have had if we’d met under different circumstances, or if we’d never been actors at all.

       The story he devises tonight, my first night back in LA, supposes that we’d met as regular high school students—something neither of us had ever been.

       “I’d have been a senior at seventeen, instead of a college sophomore. And you’d have been fourteen—so, a freshman—wide-eyed and innocent. Though I guess that sort of describes you now, too. ” His smile is teasing, but warm. “So maybe it isn’t so difficult to imagine. ”

       I lean my head in my hand, my eyes drinking in his face on my laptop screen. “You would have been popular, though. Why would you be interested in a freshman when you could have had your pick of any girl in the school? ”

       He shakes his head. “I would have seen you the first day, trying to get your locker open. ” He’s referring to the first time he saw me, in the hallway of the hotel in Austin. “Immediately intrigued, I’d have walked over, acting all cool but shaking inside, thinking who is this beautiful girl? ‘Need some help? ’ I’d say, and you’d look at me, all suspicious. I’d brush your fingers aside, gently, and say, ‘What’s your combination? ’ but you’d be too smart for that. ”

       “I would? ” I laugh. “I think maybe I’d just forget it on the spot, if you talked to me. ”

       He laughs, too. “Nah, you’d say, ‘But I’m not supposed to tell anyone my locker combination. ’ And then I’d say, ‘Don’t worry, I’m safe. ’” His smile is positively wicked. I’d have melted to a puddle on the floor if he’d said any such thing to fourteen-year-old me.

       “After more assurances and against all better judgment, you’d give me the combination and I’d open the locker for you. Then I’d lean on the adjacent locker and say, ‘I require a small fee for damsels in locker-opening distress, you know. ’ Your suspicion would come back full-force, your eyes narrowing, waiting for me to tell you this supposed fee. I’d tell you that you had to go out with me Friday, because there’s a mandatory orientation party. And since you have to go, so you might as well go with me. ”

       “Oh, smooth. ”

       “You’d get that little pensive frown you get sometimes, and you’d say, ‘Huh. No one said anything about a mandatory orientation…’” He taps his finger against his chin and I laugh at his reference to my favorite habitual word.

       “So then I’d say, ‘Oh, it’s only for special freshmen—you have to be invited by a senior. ’ Now you’re completely convinced that I’m full of crap. ‘Sounds like a hazing charge waiting to happen, ’ you’d say. ‘No, no—would I lie to you? ’ I’d say, oozing seventeen-year-old boy charm. ”

       “Were you this cheesy when you were seventeen? ” I ask.

       He grins. “Emma. I’m trying to tell a story here. And I plead the fifth. ”

       “Sorry. ”

       “So then you’d floor me. You’d say, ‘I don’t know. Would you lie to me? ’ And I would look into your eyes and see everything I could ever want. I’d say, ‘Let’s skip the party. I’ll take you to dinner. And then I’ll take you somewhere private and kiss you until you tell me to quit. ’ What would your answer be, Emma? ”

       I could barely breathe. “Oh… I think, for the sake of the story, I’d probably be okay with that. ”

       “You think? ” His mouth turns up on one side and I can tell he’s watching me on his screen as closely as I’m watching him.

       “I don’t know. I need more information about the kissing. ”

       He chuckles softly. “Let’s say you tell me yes, and we go to dinner. We talk, and we’re both surprised at how comfortable we feel. And then we get into my car and drive to a secluded spot overlooking our sleepy little suburban town. Totally private, dark but for a sky full of stars… and tomorrow, I’ll tell you what happens next. ”

       The noise that comes from my throat is half-growl and half-whimper, and he hmms. “I need to study a bit more tonight—if I even can, now—and you have to get up before five a. m. and be animated and personable on camera. ”

       I couldn’t care less about being animated or personable. “Mmm. More tomorrow? You won’t forget? ”

       “Hell no, I won’t forget, ” he says, grinning. “At this point, I’ll be lucky if it doesn’t work its way into my essay on the Lost Colony of Roanoke during my final for Early Settlements of Colonial America. I can see it now: No evidence of what happened to the 114 colonists was ever found… but in my dream last night I took Emma parking and got to third base. ”

       “Graham! ” I laugh, hands over my mouth.

       “I’m kidding. I wouldn’t go for third on the first date—maybe second? ” He laughs softly when I cover my face completely. “It’s probably just as well you didn’t meet me when I was seventeen. I was kind of a horn dog. But I think I’d have known enough to be careful and slow with you. At least, I will in this story, to be continued tomorrow…”

       I’ll never get to sleep now.