by Ali Novak
“Explain this,” she said, jabbing her finger at the tabloid.
Explain what exactly? The picture said it all. I twisted my comforter in my hands. “I met Alec Williams last night?”
“So you let a complete stranger drive you home?”
Crap. Her tone was soft, but my stomach dropped. That was my mom’s I’m-disappointed-in-you voice, and I hated that voice.
“He’s not a stranger. He’s Alec Williams,” I said as if that explained everything.
“And since you listen to his music, you think you know who he is?” She shook her head. “Felicity, anything could have happened to you. I thought you were smarter than this.”
Okay, so was this my best decision ever? No, but it wasn’t like I climbed into the back of a sketchy van with the words Free Candy painted on the side. I never would have left with Alec if I didn’t feel safe.
“Mom, he’s a nice guy.”
A vein pulsed at her temple, and I knew she’d crossed the line between irritated and angry. “A nice guy wouldn’t have paraded you around in front of the paparazzi or flaunted his fancy car,” she snapped.
“Hold up.” I folded my arms across my chest. “Are you upset because I let him drive me home or because he’s rich and famous?”
“Boys like that only want one thing,” she said through pursed lips. “I don’t want to see you get hurt.”
“God, Mom!” I exclaimed, springing up from my bed to move away from her. “It wasn’t like that at all.”
“Good,” she said, matching my tone. “I don’t want you getting caught up in the glamour of that kind of lifestyle. You can’t be distracted from school or your dreams. Stanford.”
All right, now my mom was being weird. What did she think I was going to do? Drop out of school and become a groupie? How had we gone from discussing a picture in the tabloids to talking about college?
“I’m not Rose, Mom,” I said.
I hated that every time we talked about my future, it was as if she thought I was going to make some colossal mistake that would ruin my life. As if I would turn into my sister. And that was a slap in the face. I wasn’t the daughter who got a nearly perfect score on my ACT yet didn’t graduate from high school because I was too busy partying and wasting my potential. I worked hard for my grades, and I would never, ever abandon my family.
“Honey.” The bedsprings squeaked as my mother stood, and two seconds later, her warm arms wrapped around me. “You know I’m incredibly proud of you, right?”
I nodded, and she kissed my forehead.
“You don’t have to worry about Alec Williams, Mom,” I mumbled into her shoulder. “I doubt I’ll ever see him again.”
Chapter 5
Five days later, when I hadn’t received a call or text from Alec, I knew what I’d told my mom was true. I’d never see him again. Which, while disappointing, wasn’t the end of the world. Don’t get me wrong. I would have enjoyed hanging out more with him, but it wasn’t like I had some delusional fantasy that we were soul mates and would live happily ever after.
But the issue was—because there was always some kind of issue, wasn’t there?—that Alec Williams had taken over my life. He was everywhere, and no matter how hard I tried, there was nothing I could do to return to my pre-Alec existence. Since the ball, a whole slew of tabloids had printed pictures of us together, which I only knew because Asha made it her goal to track down every single one. According to her, this was a moment I needed to remember forever, and her pile of magazines was quickly taking over my desk.
More annoying were the celebrity news sites that reported fictional stories about who I was and how we met. Their articles always seemed to quote some mysterious “insider” who not only knew me but was willing to spill details of my life. And each story was more ridiculous than the last. Girls from school who’d never spoken to me before were suddenly messaging me on Facebook, wanting to know all about Alec, and every time I turned on the radio, one of the Heartbreakers’ songs would come on.
It was all quite exhausting, but the worst of it was the reporters. They came from all the big gossip blogs and entertainment magazines to ask questions about Alec, me, and Alec and me. The first one showed up the evening after the ball. I had no clue how she figured out my name or address, but I was quick to turn down an interview. Talking to her would’ve felt weird. Besides, I didn’t get what all the buzz was about anyway. It wasn’t like I was dating Alec. We’d been seen together once.
“Wouldn’t it be easier if you talked to one of them?” Asha asked when I stepped back inside my bedroom. Two minutes earlier, the doorbell had rung, and I’d had to refuse yet another reporter.
“I don’t know,” I said, not looking at her. She was probably right, but I wasn’t interested in sharing something personal with the rest of the world. Our time at the ball was a moment that belonged to me and Alec alone. As soon as I gave an account of what happened, it wouldn’t be just ours anymore. Ninety-eight percent of teenage girls would know the story by the end of tomorrow.
I sat back down, returning to the project on my desk. I was in the middle of creating a pattern for what would become a beaded necklace of a bird. Most of the design was done, but I had yet to figure out the challenging part, the wings.
“I think you should do it,” Asha said, paging through the edition of Us Weekly she’d brought over to add to my collection. “Once you tell your story, they’ll go away. Right, Boomer?”
We both glanced at my other best friend, who was sprawled in my beanbag chair with his Game Boy. It was an ancient hand-me-down from his brother, who’d gotten it in the early 2000s. Boomer was addicted to the damn thing. He only had one game, a Pokémon something or other, but he never went anywhere without it. We’d met freshman year when he showed up in beginners’ metalworking and took the only available seat in the room—the empty stool next to me.
“Hey, pssst.” He had leaned over so I could hear him. Not that he’d needed to; his voice was so loud it was like he came with a built-in megaphone. “Why am I the only guy in this class? Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Personally, I rather like this ratio, but it still strikes me as odd.”
I’d stared at him for a few seconds before saying, “Probably because this is a jewelry-making class.”
“Jewelry?” He frowned and rubbed his chin. “I thought metalworking meant welding. You know, where you melt shit together?”
I laughed. “We might do some soldering.”
“Does it require a blowtorch?”
“Nope. No blowtorches necessary.”
“Well, that really blows.” He’d offered me a full-faced grin. “Pun definitely intended.”
We spent the rest of the semester goofing off. After that, we decided to take every obscure art class our school offered together, from photography—can you say snooze fest?—to cartooning, where Boomer entertained me by drawing inappropriate cartoons of dicks. When Asha first met him, she said he was childish, but I often wondered if her aversion stemmed from the fact that she liked him. With curly, ash-brown hair and chocolate eyes, he had the boy-next-door look that was totally Asha’s type. It only took a week of lunch periods for her to warm up to him.
“Right, Boomer?” she repeated, her sigh heavy with exaggeration.
“Right, what?” he asked Asha without looking up.
She rolled her eyes. “Don’t you agree that Felicity should do an interview?”
He frowned, his thumbs moving at rapid speed. “No, no, no!” he exclaimed, and his shoulders slumped. He tossed the Game Boy to the side. “Goddammit, Chansey is impossible to catch. All the gaming forums say it’s Tauros, but I caught that sucker right away. Chansey, on the other hand, has the lowest encounter rate of the game and—”
“Hello? Trying to have a conversation here.”
“Oh.” Boomer scratched the back of his head. “Sorry, Ash
a, but I’m totally with Fel on this particular subject.”
He pushed himself off the beanbag and stood to his full height. At six foot ten, Boomer was basketball star material, although he lacked the coordination required to play. The only trait that outshone his freakishly tall stature was the volume at which he did everything—talking, eating, even walking. He was twice as loud as a regular person.
“What? Why?”
Boomer plodded over to my bed and flopped down next to Asha, making my bedsprings squeak in protest. “Because some people value their privacy. Besides, it’s not like she has much of a story to tell. The only cool thing that happened was riding in that F12.”
I laughed. That was such a Boomer thing to say. He had an obsession with cars. His dream was to become a mechanical engineer and work for a NASCAR team, specializing in engine development. If he wasn’t playing his Game Boy, he was most likely talking about engines or racing, and during the course of our friendship, I’d inadvertently learned everything I knew about cars from listening to him chatter. Which was how I’d recognized Alec’s Ferrari.
“Are you serious? This is about Felicity doing a service for every Heartbreakers fan out there,” Asha insisted.
Boomer cocked an eyebrow. “I thought it was about getting rid of the reporters.”
But Asha wasn’t listening. “She literally lived every fan’s dream, and she’s not going to share her experience with the rest of the world?”
“Are you calling me selfish?” I asked with a laugh.
“If she is,” Boomer said, snagging the package of cookies lying between them on the bed, “I’ll be quick to remind her that real selfishness is hogging all the Oreos.”
I knew Asha was only joking around, but I still felt the need to defend myself. “Even if I wanted to do an interview, I can’t. My mom has been weird about this whole thing.”
“Yeah, I suppose. What’s up with that?” Asha asked, and all I could do was shrug in response.
“Speaking of moms, I’d better go,” Boomer said, snatching the last Oreo out of the sleeve. “I promised mine I’d pick up Kevin from T-ball practice.”
“Ugh, lame,” Asha said, tossing a pillow at his face. “Fel and I were going to watch the season finale of Immortal Nights together.”
“I take it you need a ride?” he asked.
“Yeah.” She scowled and brushed cookie crumbs from her shirt. “Ever since Riya’s car died, I’ve lost all use of the van. So unfair.”
“See you guys tomorrow at Electric Waffle?” I asked as the two stood and headed toward the bedroom door. The Electric Waffle is the diner where I waitressed. We served breakfast only, and every table had a built-in electric griddle so customers could cook their own waffles. While it was a cute idea, the griddles were more of a pain in the ass than anything—impossible to clean out, and people always wanted refunds when they burned their own food.
I worked so often that the diner had become our haunt. During my shifts, Boomer and Asha would make camp in one of the back booths. Usually they did homework or studied, but since it was summer, Boomer wasted his time playing Pokémon while Asha ran her Tumblr account. On my breaks or when there was a lull in customers, I’d go hang out.
Boomer nodded. “Yup. What time does your shift end?”
“I’ll be done at six.”
“Make sure to call me when Immortal Nights is over,” Asha said, pointing a finger at me. “We’ll have lots to analyze.”
“Will do. Bye, guys.”
After Boomer and Asha were gone, I focused on finishing the pattern for my necklace. I’d been making jewelry since junior high. One of my mom’s first jobs after the divorce was as a sales clerk at a fancy boutique, and I remember being mesmerized by all the sparkly pieces on display. There was no way Mom could afford to buy anything that expensive, so she got a beginners’ jewelry kit for me to make my own. Starting out, all I’d been able to do was string a few beads together, but nowadays my work was good enough that people often stopped me on the street to ask where I bought my earrings or bracelet or whatever I was wearing.
I was getting into the groove of working when the doorbell rang again.
“Are you freaking kidding me?” I grumbled, pushing away from my desk. I’d tried to be patient with the reporters, I really had, but their constant badgering was driving me crazy. I stormed down the hall, and a picture of Mom, Rose, and me rattled against the wall.
“If you don’t get off my property right now, I’m going to call the police! I’m not doing an interview!” I shouted when I threw open the door. “What don’t you people understand about that?”
“Felicity?”
I froze.
That voice. I knew that voice. It was sexy and deep—a sound I wouldn’t easily forget. My hands dropped to my side, and I stared at the person standing on my porch. There was a baseball hat pulled low over his face and a pair of sunglasses hiding the spectacular color of his eyes, but I knew who he was in an instant.
And he was no reporter.
• • •
“Alec?” I gasped. “What are you doing here?”
He flinched and glanced over his shoulder, as if he expected one of the reporters who’d been stalking me to jump out of the bushes. “Hi,” he said slowly, like he wasn’t entirely sure why he was here either. “Sorry for showing up without any warning.”
“It’s okay,” I said quickly, but I was glad Mom was at work. What would have happened if she was the one who’d opened the door? Suddenly her voice whispered in my head—boys like that only want one thing—and a flush crept across my cheeks.
He glanced down at his watch, but not in an impatient checking-the-time way. More like a surprised wow-when-did-this-get-here way, and he fiddled with the clasp before looking back at me. “Can we talk?”
“Sure.” I leaned against the doorframe, trying to look casual. Because teenage celebrities stopped by my house all the time. Obviously.
Alec shifted his weight. “Do you think… I mean, may I come in?”
I hesitated. There was the choice I knew I should make…and the one I wanted to make. Mom’s shift was ending soon, and I didn’t want her to come home and catch him here. There was no house rule forbidding me from having boys over while she was gone, though for Rose, it had been an entirely different story. However, I had a strong feeling Mom wouldn’t approve of Alec after our earlier conversation. And the last thing I needed was to give her another reason to think I was starting to act like my sister.
But Alec seemed on edge, and when he looked over his shoulder a second time, I couldn’t leave him standing on the stoop. “Yeah, okay,” I said, and his shoulders visibly relaxed.
I moved out of the way so he could step inside, and he quickly brushed past me with a quiet thanks. I closed the door before turning to face him, and when our gazes met, that was when it hit me—Alec Williams is in my house!
After a few seconds of us staring at each other, he had yet to say anything. Wasn’t he the one who came to see me?
“So…” I said, as he pulled off his hat and fixed his hair. “I suppose we can talk in my room?”
For a split second, I considered leading Alec to the living room instead. If Mom did come home, it would be better if she found us on the couch than in my bedroom. But I’d been folding laundry in front of the TV before Asha and Boomer came over, and it was still spread out across the carpet. The last thing I wanted was for him to see a collection of my bras or, worse, the pair of pink lace underwear I knew was at the top of the clothing pile.
As we walked down the hall, I twisted my watch around in circles and prayed for my insides to stop quivering. When we passed the bathroom, I caught a quick glimpse of myself in the mirror. My hair was piled on my head in a messy bun, and I had on a Team Luca shirt, complete with an image of shirtless Gabe Grant. Asha had loaned it to me and insisted I wear it for t
he finale tonight. I was praying Alec wouldn’t notice, but once we were in my room, he tried unsuccessfully to hide a smile.
I crossed my arms over Luca/Gabe. “What?”
“Immortal Nights fan?”
“Believe it or not, no. My best friend is obsessed enough for both of us.”
“Uh-huh,” he responded, turning in a circle to inspect my room.
I could tell from his tone that he didn’t believe me, which was slightly embarrassing, but then he spotted my closet door, and I learned the true meaning of the word. There, taped next to a picture collage of Asha, Boomer, and me, was a Heartbreakers poster. It was from the band’s first album, Dance till Dawn, and all four boys looked like babies. Oliver Perry, the lead singer, had long, floppy hair, while Alec looked a least a foot shorter than he was now.
As if he didn’t see the poster, Alec glanced away quickly, and I was glad we were pretending it wasn’t there. Because really, how awkward was it that I had a picture of him in my bedroom?
He wandered over to my desk, which was on the opposite side of the room from my closet, and examined the bead jars that were lined up in order of the rainbow. The sun streaming in from my window made the colorful pieces shine like the plastic pegs of a Lite-Brite. When he noticed the necklace I was working on, he leaned over for a better look.
“It will be a bird when I’m finished.”
He tilted his head. “Why a bird?”
“Homage to my favorite book.”
I nodded toward my shelf. On the top row was a collection of my favorite novels: The Scarlet Letter, Fahrenheit 451, The Catcher in the Rye, and so on. The books used to belong to my father. Besides the fact that he was a lawyer, the only thing I remembered about him was that he had a soft spot for American literature. I’d discovered the box of books when we moved out of our old house and hid them underneath the clothes in my suitcase so Mom wouldn’t find out. I don’t remember why I wanted them. Maybe it was to remind myself that the man actually existed. Whatever the reason, I was glad I’d kept them. If I never learned anything else about my dad, at least I knew we had one passion in common; we both loved reading.