by Tracy Deebs
“Kind of?” he repeats with a laugh. “Wow, you really know how to make a guy feel good about himself.”
“I wasn’t trying to make you feel good. I was just being honest.”
“Honest, huh?” He steps a little closer, and suddenly I feel a little zing of electricity at his proximity. I mean, of course I do—the guy is one long, lean package of gorgeous. All laser-green eyes and sharp jaw and cheekbones you can hang the moon on. Plus he’s smart. And nice. Any girl with a pulse would feel a zing in this situation.
Still, I tamp it down quickly. A quick sizzle of attraction to Keegan is normal. Letting myself think it matters is something else entirely. And acting on it…acting on it is absolutely out of the question. First off, because he likes some other girl enough to get all freaked out about so much as talking to her, and secondly because there’s no way I’m getting that close to anyone at NextGen. It just wouldn’t be fair when I’m lying to everyone about who I am. Not to mention the fact that Cherry’s life is a total and complete mess right now. The last thing some unsuspecting guy needs is to be a part of that.
“Cut the crap, Keegan,” I tell him when I have control over my hormones again. “You know you’re hot. Plus, rumor has it you’ve got a pretty good brain to back up your looks. So what’s the problem? The girl would be nuts not to go for you.” But then something occurs to me. “She doesn’t have a boyfriend, does she?”
“I don’t think so, no.”
“That didn’t sound very confident.”
“Yeah, well, isn’t that what started this whole conversation?” he says with a smirk. “The fact that you don’t think I’m confident enough?”
I roll my eyes. “Nice deflection.” Something else occurs to me. “She’s not a teacher, is she?”
He looks at me like I’ve lost my mind. “That’s disgusting.”
“I don’t know. Some of the teachers are pretty hot—like Ms. Torres or Mrs. Jackson.”
“My mom is the vice principal. I’ve known both of those teachers—and most of the others—since I was five.”
“Okay, I can see that being a little bit of a turnoff.”
He snorts. “Just a little bit. Not to mention the fact that they’re old.”
I don’t tell him that where I come from, age doesn’t matter nearly as much as what a person can do for you. The last thing he needs is to hear about some of the offers I’ve received through the years…
“Okay, no boyfriend and not a teacher. So what’s the problem, then? Why don’t you just ask her out?”
“After all that, that’s your big advice? That I should just ask her out? Thanks, but Jacen already told me that.”
“Well, it’s good advice. I mean, what’s the worst thing that’d happen if you ask her out?”
“She could say no.”
“Okay, so she says no. Big deal.”
Once again, he looks less than impressed with my intellect. “I don’t want her to say no.”
“Well, obviously. But you’re never going to know unless you try. Besides, she’s not going to say no.”
“You sound entirely too confident, considering you don’t even know who the girl is.”
“I am confident. And it doesn’t matter who she is.”
“Oh, yeah?” The music inside the tent gets really loud all of a sudden, making it nearly impossible for me to hear the rest of what he’s saying. So Keegan moves in even closer, so close that a deep breath on either of our parts would have my breasts brushing against his chest. Then he’s leaning, head down, so that his mouth is only a couple inches from my ear. And just like that, the zing is back, except this time it’s more like a bang than a zing—a mini explosion going off inside me before we’ve even touched. “Why’s that?”
“Because.” My voice sounds a little strangled and I clear my throat, give a fake cough or two. Try to play it off like it’s the famous Austin allergies and not the fact that I’m suddenly, wildly attracted to a guy I have no business being attracted to. “You’re the total package. Brains, beauty, and ambition. What girl could possibly say no to that?”
“A lot of them, actually.” He laughs, and it’s all rueful and self-deprecating and charming as hell. Not that I’m charmed. At all.
“I don’t believe you. You just need to own it more, that’s all.”
“Own it more? Really?” His eyes narrow considerably, and this time when he leans forward, his body actually does brush against mine. “So what you’re telling me is that if I asked you out right now, you’d say yes?”
My mouth goes dry. My hands go damp. And my heart slams against my ribs once, twice, then starts racing the way it does when I run out on stage in front of sixty thousand people. Is he asking me out?
Is Keegan Matthews actually asking me out?
For a second, just a second, I let myself think about what that would be like. Just going on a regular date with a regular guy. Dinner at some little dive, maybe catching a film that doesn’t involve a red carpet. Walking through the SoCo shops holding hands…it’d be really nice. But then reality comes crashing down on me, because I haven’t been able to go shopping in years without being recognized. And the absolute last thing I can do is go on a regular date with a regular guy when “regular” is the one word that absolutely can’t be applied to me.
I fumble around for a minute, trying to figure out what to say, when it hits me he’s just messing with me. Just trying another tactic to get the conversation off of him and his mystery girl.
Relief swamps me. Thank God I don’t have to make up some really lame excuse as to why I can’t go out with him. I’m a great liar—I’ve had to be—but that doesn’t mean I want to lie to Keegan any more than I absolutely have to. Not when it feels like he might be the first new friend I actually make here at NextGen.
Which is how I end up laughing instead of giving him any of the ridiculous excuses that swam through my head. “See how easy that was?” I tell him as I reach out and smack his shoulder. “Now you just have to do that with your mystery girl and you’ll be all set.”
“So you’re turning me down?” This time both brows go up. “See, you’ve proven my point. There’s no guarantee she’s going to say yes, no matter how much of a catch you say I am. And I don’t want to risk her saying no, not if it means I’ve blown my one and only chance with her.”
“First of all, you don’t get to hide behind a pretend invitation and say that it’s proof of anything.” It’s my turn to narrow my eyes at him. “But okay, I get it. If you’re really gone for this girl, the last thing you want to do is ask her out too soon and have her say no. Because if you stick around and try to force another opportunity, you come off as a stalker. And that’s a look very few people can carry off.”
“Exactly what I’ve been trying to tell you and Jacen,” he answers, obviously exasperated. “I’m definitely not a stalker. So I’ll just wait and see what happens. Maybe I’ll get a shot in a few months—”
“Wait and see what happens? What kind of can-do attitude is that? You don’t wait for her to notice you—you make her notice you!”
“Wow. A dance, twinkle lights, and a self-help lecture all wrapped up in one fifty-dollar package.”
“Funny,” I tell him with a roll of my eyes.
“I try.”
“Not hard enough, obviously, or we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
“Seriously? We’re back to that?”
“We never left it!” I make sure I sound exasperated—and not charmed—by his ridiculousness.
“Fine. How exactly am I supposed to make her notice me, short of making a total ass out of myself?”
“Isn’t that obvious? You woo her!”
“Woo her?” He sounds incredulous.
“Woo her. As in wow her but with two o’s instead of a w. As in romance her. As in—”
“I know what woo means! I just don’t know how I’m supposed to do that when she barely knows I exist. Besides, does anyone actually woo anyone anym
ore?”
“If they don’t, they should.” I start to say more, but by this time a bunch more NextGen students have made their way out of the tent, and the last thing I want is for them to overhear our conversation. So I sling a companionable arm around Keegan’s waist and start steering him back toward the dance. It’s harder than it sounds considering we can’t go two feet without bumping into someone who knows Keegan or wants to know Keegan.
And I’ll give the guy credit. He stops for every single person who wants to talk to him. Gives a fist bump here, a pat on the back there, even a few hugs now and then. And I watch the whole thing, growing more and more impressed by him with every person who comes up to him. Because, much like the dance itself, Keegan is nothing like the TV and movie representations of the most popular guy in school. He’s open and friendly and, more, he’s a genuinely nice guy who tries to connect with every person he talks to.
In other words, he’s pretty much the anti-me. I’ve spent the last few years making sure I don’t connect with anyone but my fans. Making sure I don’t let anyone in close enough to know me, let alone hurt me. If I hadn’t just spent the last few minutes talking to Keegan about Dream Girl, I wouldn’t think he ever worried about getting hurt. He’s that open and has that many friends.
Which, I have to admit, is a big downside to picking Keegan Matthews as my first friend here. Because if I want to fly under the radar, hanging out with him is definitely not the way to do it. Already, I can feel people looking at me. Studying me. Trying to guess how I fit with Keegan.
Once I realize they’re looking, I try to keep a good amount of distance between us—at least a couple feet. Of course, it might be more convincing if Keegan, in typical Keegan Matthews style, would stop trying to include me in whatever conversation he gets drawn into.
He’s such a good guy—so different from most of the guys I know in the industry—that it kind of blows me away. He’s got everything going for him and yet he acts like he’s nothing special. Where I’m from, it’s usually the other way around. “Fake it ’til you make it” is the motto—pretend you’re the biggest thing in the world even when no one knows your name.
It was never my thing. My dad and manager were always after me to act bigger, think bigger, want more, be more. I tried to resist, but when there are contracts and record labels involved, what the artist wants matters about as much as what the janitor wants. Especially when that artist is underage.
“Hey, Dahlia.” Keegan’s at it again, smiling and gesturing me closer so he can introduce me to yet another group of people.
I let him make the introductions, before I fade quietly into the background of the conversation. Then, when he finally turns his face away to talk to someone else, I take the opportunity to duck back inside the tent for my purse.
It’s been a good night. Talking to Finn, meeting Keegan. For the first time since I got to NextGen, I don’t feel completely alone.
It’s a good feeling.
I don’t want to push it, though, don’t want to stay at the dance too long and risk losing my anonymity the way Cinderella lost her shoe. But as I slip out to the parking lot and into my car, I can’t help thinking about Keegan and his mystery girl.
If I’ve learned anything in the last few years, it’s that guys like Keegan don’t come along very often. He might not think Dream Girl knows he exists, but he’s wrong. The whole school knows who Keegan Matthews is, and most of the female population spends a couple minutes each day drooling over him as he walks through the halls.
Why shouldn’t he get Dream Girl? And why shouldn’t Dream Girl get him? Every girl deserves a really nice guy at least once in her life. God knows, I’ve wished for one more times than I can count. I’ve never been that lucky—it was pretty hard to find a nice guy when my dad spent years organizing my social life according to who was most advantageous to my career.
That doesn’t mean I don’t want one. Doesn’t mean I don’t believe in happily ever after for some people. Keegan deserves a happily ever after, especially with everything the kids at school say is going on in his life right now. If I can help him get it, why shouldn’t I?
Now the only question is how to do it.
I know about dating in Hollywood—where it’s easily as much about what you can do for each other’s careers as it is about if you actually like each other—but high school dating is a whole new world for me. Still, a lot of the same rules apply, right? Keegan is a hot commodity, so dating him is a coup in and of itself. But right now, that status also makes him a little untouchable. Like something to be put up on a shelf and admired but never taken down for a spin.
In Hollywood, when a celebrity suffers from this enough to impact the box office/record sales/television ratings, they get him or her a few dates with some charmingly approachable but still hot B-list actress or actor. They do a few pap walks, maybe an awards ceremony, have a few cute moments, and bam, Mr. Untouchable is now not only hot as hell, but also relatable—a winning combination.
So the question is, how to make Keegan “touchable” to the girl he has a crush on? The answer is, of course, by having someone show that he is. But who? And where?
I’m still contemplating this as I pull onto the street. And that’s when the perfect idea hits me. Suddenly, I can’t wait for Monday when I can put it into action.
After all, isn’t that what friends are for?
Chapter Four
Keegan let himself into the house around two in the morning. The after-party was still going strong at Finn’s house—big surprise considering the guy had everything from a pool table to a heated pool—but he hadn’t been in the mood to party. Not when an uneasy feeling had been dogging him ever since he’d left the dance.
Part of it was because of how he’d left things with Dahlia—or how he hadn’t, to be more specific. Their conversation had been broken up when he’d gotten bogged down talking to everyone. He’d tried to include her in the conversations, but she’d spent most of the time standing on the sidelines looking uncomfortable and doing everything but participating.
He’d tried to break away numerous times, but people kept sucking him back in. And maybe it was stupid of him, but as student body president, he felt a responsibility—especially at school functions—to be available to whoever wanted to talk. Sure, they weren’t talking about school stuff, but that didn’t matter. It was his job to make sure everyone had a good time and felt included. Some of his friends told him it was stupid that he felt that way, but he didn’t run because he wanted to be the same kind of president the school had had the other three years he’d been there. He’d run because he wanted to do things differently. Wanted to do them right.
And normally he didn’t mind talking to people from all the different groups at NextGen. After all, he liked people. He liked talking to them, liked helping them, pretty much liked everything about them. But the fact that he’d lost his only time with Dahlia to them, had lost his chance to connect with her…yeah. That pretty much blew. Almost as much as him finally getting up the nerve to ask her out only to have her laugh it off like it was a joke.
He was still brooding about the whole encounter as he closed the door behind him and carefully made his way through the dark and quiet house. He didn’t have a curfew, so it wasn’t like he was sneaking in or anything, but his dad had a hard enough time sleeping as it was. The last thing Keegan wanted to do was wake him up if this was actually one of the good nights—
He froze as he saw it, the light shining from beneath his father’s closed office doors. And knew that he’d been wrong. Tonight wasn’t one of the good nights, after all.
As he walked over to the door and knocked softly, he ignored the little voice in the back of his head that told him the good nights were getting so much fewer and farther between. He wasn’t going to think like that, not now when his father’s voice—as deep and strong as ever—called for him to come in. And not when there was still so much chemotherapy and radiation to go through. Still so m
any things that might go right with his treatment. The doctors said it was important for them to remain optimistic, and he was damn well going to do just that. At least in front of his father.
“Hey, Dad.” He stuck his head in the door. “I just got home from the dance. Do you need anything?”
His father waved him in, gesturing for him to sit beside him on the oversize leather sofa that ran the length of one wall. “How was it? Did you have a good time?”
“It was okay. Nothing special.”
“Nothing special, huh? Does that mean the girl you like didn’t show up?” He didn’t look up from the piece of wood he was whittling.
“What girl?”
“I’ve got lung cancer, dude, not a brain tumor. The logic center of my brain still works well enough for me to remember that you always have a date for the school dances and to draw the conclusion, then, that if you don’t have a date for this dance, it’s out of choice. And if that’s the case, then there’s probably a girl you wanted to take but a) you couldn’t work up the nerve to ask her or b) she was already going with someone else. Either way, you were hoping if you went stag you’d at least get a dance or two with her.”
He didn’t ask if he was right, but then he didn’t have to. Just like he didn’t have to look up from the wood in his hands for Keegan to know that most of his father’s attention was on him. The whittling was a hobby, yes, but they’d had too many important conversations while his dad was carving out shapes from blocks of wood for Keegan to not understand that it was also a way for his father to give him a chance to figure things out without the pressure of having to look his dad in the eye the whole time.
“You forgot an option,” he said after a minute.
His father did look up then, just a quick glance with eyebrows raised almost to his hairline. “Oh, yeah?”
“I could have asked her and she could have said no.”
His dad laughed. “Yeah, that didn’t happen.”
“Oh, yeah? How do you know that?”
“Because if she had, you would have stayed home and nursed your broken heart or asked the hottest girl you could find to the dance even if you didn’t like her so you could bolster your wounded pride.”