Starkissed (10 page)

Chapter Fourteen

I slam the door in his face. I know it’s not the smoothest move. But you have to realize by now that when panicked, I’m not exactly the most rational person. I back up to the side wall and lean against it. This isn’t happening. Not now. I’m breathing hard and heavy. Is this what it’s like to hyperventilate? Blood rushes in my ears and my vision is blurring.

“Hello?” Caroline’s tiny voice calls up at me from the floor. I bend over and pick up the fallen phone, then hold it to my ear.

“What happened?” she asks.

“He’s here,” I whisper.

“What?”

“He’s here,” I say a little louder.

“Who’s there?”

I swallow a large lump in my throat. I lean over so I can see out the window that runs parallel to the door. All I can see his left shoulder.

“Grant. He’s standing on the front porch.”

“Oh my God! I’m on my way.”

She hangs up before I can tell her to stay home.

Once my heart slows a little and I don’t sound like a panting dog when I breathe, I gently pull the door back open.

“Sydney,” he sighs, “I am so so sorry.”

I shake my head at him, step forward onto the porch, and then yank the front door closed behind me. He’s wearing the same clothes he was wearing on Letterman. A black button up shirt, grey dress pants, and a matching grey vest. He looks amazing, grotesquely so. Despite the fact that 99 percent of me hates him more than anything else in this entire world, the other one percent wants to reach out and touch him, just to make sure he’s real.

“What the hell are you doing here?” I hiss.

“Sydney,” he breathes. He reaches up and runs his fingers through his hair, then closes his hand to a fist and drops it back to his side. “I’m so sorry. I came here as soon as I finished the interview. I don’t know what I was thinking...I didn’t mean to say what I said.”

I snort. “Yeah right. That’s why you just finished telling David Letterman my life story.”

“I wouldn’t say that, I mean I don’t really know all that much...”

“That’s not the point! I spent forever getting people to believe we aren’t a couple. It was a nightmare. And now you’ve just gone a ruined it all. Now everyone thinks we’re together and their never going to believe me. Ugh!”

He blinks. “Most girls would...”

“Would what? Fall at their knees at the sight of you? Beg and plead to just touch you let alone to be your girlfriend. Well let me tell you something, I am not most girls!” I stomp my foot. “God you’re so full of yourself.”

“I’m sorry.” He twists his mouth into a remorseful smile. His teeth are so white, especially against the darker shade of his skin. It’s kind of hypnotic.

I hear movement on the other side of the door. “Sydney!” My dad’s voice booms from inside the house. “Where did you go?”

Oh crap. I look at Grant and whisper, “you can’t be here.”

“What?”

“You have to go. Now.”

“I know you hate me, but please can we just talk?”

“It’s not that. I mean yes, I do hate you. A lot. But right now my dad hates you more than any other person on this planet and if he finds you here, well let’s just say he won’t hesitate to tear your head from your body.”

“Because I lied?”

“No. Because I did. At least that’s what he thinks. I’ve spent the past two weeks convincing everyone that I don’t know you. Now everyone is going to think I was lying, my dad included. And he hated you enough already, when he just thought you were some guy who kissed me randomly on the street. But now he thinks we have a secret relationship or something! He is going to kill you. Then me.”

“But I can tell him the truth.”

“And he’ll still kill you.”

“Sydney,” my dad calls again. He’s close, too close.

“Grant go.”

“Just let me...”

The door starts to open. This isn’t good. I look at Grant and seeing no other option, swiftly press both my hands against his chest. He must think I’m about to kiss him because for a half second this look passes across his face, this look that says – I knew you couldn’t resist me after all. But I don’t kiss him. Instead I put all my weight into pushing him as hard as I can. It’s not easy considering his height and breadth, but between the surprise and force, he stumbles and tips backward, over the porch railing, disappearing from sight.

There’s a thump and then a warbled. “Ouch!”

“Sorry,” I whisper into the night air. Although to be honest, pushing him was kind of satisfying.

“Sydney?” Dad steps outside. “What are you doing out here?”

“Um.” I look around at the darkened block. What the hell can I say? Oh I was just having a talk with the guy you think is my secret boyfriend?

“Caroline.” I improvise. “She’s on her way over. I just thought I’d wait for her out here.”

“At this hour? Why on earth would she come here?”

“Well she saw the interview and she wants to you know, talk.”

“
I
want to talk.”

“I know.”

“Get inside.”

“Please can I just wait for her first? I’ll send her away, I promise.”

He furrows his brow but relents. “Fine.” He steps back inside and shuts the door. I exhale loudly.

I walk over to the edge of the porch and look down. Grant is crouched over staring at the ground. “He’s gone, for now. But you’ve got to get out of here.”

He climbs to his feet and leans against the porch rail. “Can we just talk? Please? If not tonight, then tomorrow?”

“Okay, whatever. Just go before he comes back. For your safety and mine.”

He reaches into his pocket and hands something to me. A scrap of paper with a number scrawled on it. “My cell,” he says. “Call me in the morning. Or I’ll just come back.”

“Alright. Now go.”

He nods. Then hunched over, scurries across our front lawn to a black sedan sitting by the curb. He looks back at me one last time, then opens the back door and climbs inside. Someone, his driver I guess, starts the car’s engine and they pull out onto the deserted street. Just as their taillights disappear at the end of the road, a set of bright white headlights come into view. Caroline.

She parks by the curb and then, wearing a pair of Hello Kitty pajama bottoms and a black hoodie, rushes out of her car and up to me.

“Where is he?” she pants.

“Gone.”

“Gone! But why?” she says it so loudly I have to clamp my hand over her mouth.

“Because I didn’t want my dad to kill him.” I say in a forceful whisper. “Nobody else knows he was here and they’re not going to know. Okay? Promise you won’t say anything.”

She nods. I pull my hand away from her face.

“I can’t believe Grant West is actually in West Plane,” she sighs happily.

***

The rest of the night is a headache. Caroline, dejectedly, goes home, but only after I promise to call her after I talk to Grant tomorrow. She also asks me to ask him to sign her
Dead of Night
DVD. Regrettably, I agree, and take it from her as she thrusts it in my hands on her way down the porch steps.

Back inside the house my parents are waiting. Dad is still fuming, Mom still looks torn. I have no desire what so ever to talk to either of them, but I know I don’t exactly have a choice in the matter.

By Dad’s demand, Angelina and America head upstairs. I sit down on the couch, waiting for the onslaught. I hate seeing my dad so upset with me. I’ve never been on his bad side before, and I don’t want to stay there. But I don’t how am I going to make him believe I’m not the liar he thinks that I am.

Before either of them can start talking, I lean forward and look them in the eye.

“I know you think I’m lying. I know you think I’ve been sneaking around behind your back with Grant for weeks. But that’s not true. I don’t know why he lied, but he did. We aren’t together. Never have been.”

Dad sighs. He doesn’t look as angry as before. Just tired, so tired.

“But why would he lie, Sydney? It just doesn’t seem likely.”

“I don’t know,” I shrug. “Maybe he’s a sociopath.” I blink, remembering him on the porch. He’s not a sociopath. As idiotic as he is, there was remorse in his apology. Real remorse. “Maybe he just panicked. But I promise you, I’m not a liar. You can trust me.”

“I don’t know. After these past couple of weeks...”

I look over at Mom. “Do you believe me?”

“Of course sweetie,” she smiles, but her heart isn’t in it. Maybe she does believe me, but I don’t think she wants to.

Chapter Fifteen

I can barely sleep all night and by the time 8 a.m. rolls around I give up trying. I find Grant’s number and grab my cell off my dresser. Despite the fact that I’m supposed to despise him, the thought of talking to him again makes my stomach clench with nerves and excitement. “You hate him,” I say out loud, “don’t forget.” I look at the phone. My heart jumps an extra beat. I dial his number, then hang up, five times. I contemplate forgetting he was ever here and not calling him, but I believed him when he said he would just come back if I didn’t call. I hit send.

He answers after two rings. He must have call display because he doesn’t even bother with hello, he just says, “Sydney.”

“Hi.” I hold the phone tightly against my ear and ignore the fact that my hands are shaking.

“I’m glad you called.” He waits for me to respond, but I stay silent. I hear him sigh on the other end of the line, and then he says, “Can we meet?”

I squirm. “Can’t we just do this over the phone?”

“I’d rather not.”

I sigh. “Fine. Where?”

“I could come to your house.”

I laugh. “No freaking way.” It’s not just my parents I don’t want to expose him to; it’s the rest of my family. What Angelina would do upon seeing him. Hell, Ava would probably be a nightmare too. When she got home last night, she didn’t have a clue what had happened. Her friend Mike, whose house she was at, doesn’t have a television. But by the time Dad finished explaining, her eyes were flashing deviously. For a second I swear I thought I saw her pupils morph into little dolphin shapes.

“Where else then?” he asks.

I pause and think for a moment. We need to go somewhere we won’t be spotted. Somewhere I won’t run into anyone from school. “The downtown library. They open at nine-thirty. I’ll meet you in the science fiction section.”

“You’re serious?” I hear laughter in his voice and imagine his full lips turned into a slight smile.

“Goodbye Grant.” I hang up the phone before I can start imagining anything else.

I spend the next half hour getting ready. Luckily my family is rife with over sleepers and no one gets up to bother me. I take a shower, get dressed, and eat some breakfast.

I grab my keys and purse, slide my feet into a pair of flats, and snatch a light jacket from the closet. I yank open the front door and freeze. “Holy crap,” I swallow. “Holy freaking crap.” A blast of sound fills my ears and I gape at the front lawn, or where the front lawn should be. You can’t really see it now, what with all the people standing on it.

“There she is!” someone screams out.

Suddenly there’s a mad rush as at least a hundred people swivel in my direction, whip out cameras, and begin taking pictures. Flashes go off everywhere.

I stagger back into the house, my body shaking and a thin sheen of sweat covering my forehead. This can’t be happening. It can’t. I grit my teeth and clench my fists. I’m definitely going to be on the news tonight. I can just see the headlines now: “Teen girl murders famous movie star.”

“Sydney!” a voice screams out. “How does it feel to be dating the world’s most eligible bachelor?”

I want to scream out, “I’m not dating him!” But I keep my lips firmly shut and for the second time in less than twelve hours, I slam the front door. I try and call Grant to cancel, but he doesn’t pick up. I definitely have to talk to him now. He has to tell everyone he lied or something! He has to get these photographers away from me.

I dial Caroline’s number. She answers in a groggy voice and I ask her to meet me a couple blocks away from my house. She sounds confused by the idea, but agrees.

I start pawing through the front closet in search of some sneakers. I find a pair and discard my flimsy gold flats. I’m just lacing the runners up when Dad comes down the stairs, Ava following closely behind him. Both are in their PJ’s and yawning.

“You’re up early,” Dad says.

I nod. Crap. What do I say? What do I tell him? I get up to my feet and skirt over toward the narrow window beside the door. I block it with my body while reaching around and twisting the long plastic stick so the blinds close.

“Are you going somewhere?” Ava asks.

“Yeah, I’m meeting Caroline. I’ll be back later.” I finish tying my laces, then reach into the closet and grab one of America’s baseball caps. I pull it down over my hair.

“That really isn’t a good look for you,” Ava comments. “If you’re going to wear a hat, at least make it a tam or something.”

I glare at her then slide on a pair of sunglasses from my purse. I head toward the kitchen. They follow. I open the back door, then look at them and cringe. “Um you guys might want to stay inside today.”

“And why is that?” Dad asks suspiciously. I should explain. But I have to get out of here and I know the minute that he realizes what’s going on outside, he’s going to freak out and he may never let me leave the house again.

“Just trust me. It’s better that way.”

I step out the door and look over my shoulder. “And don’t even try opening the front door. Okay? Bye.”

I rush through the backyard.

Dad calls out. “What’s going on?” I wave a noncommittal hand over my shoulder and refrain from answering.

I grab the rusty old stepladder that’s resting against the shed and set it up by the back fence. “Sydney what are you doing?” Dad calls out as I hoist myself over the six-foot-tall wooden slats and drop down, somewhat painfully, into the Hamden’s backyard on the other side. I don’t answer, just rush through the yard and out on to the next street over. It’s so empty, you’d have no idea a militia of reporters was camped out just a block over.

I meet Caroline two blocks to the east of the Hamden’s. While I’m waiting for her, I hide in the shade of a large, leafy tree in someone’s front yard. Her car appears a few minutes later. She’s at the wheel looking a little worse for wear, probably because I didn’t give her time to shower or put on makeup.

“Okay so what’s going on?” She yawns as I climb into the passenger seat.

“Remember how last week you warned me the paparazzi might show up at my house?”

She nods.

“Well they’re finally here.”

“Really? Holy crap! I have to check this out!”

“No,” I shake my head firmly. “We aren’t going anywhere near there. The last thing I need now is to get cornered by a bunch of pesky photographers. I’ve got to get to the library.”

“What? You have a book overdue or something?” she snorts.

“I’m meeting Grant there. In three minutes.”

Her eyes bulge. “We’re going to see Grant? Why didn’t you tell me? Look at me, I’m disgusting. I can’t meet Grant like this. I just can’t.”

“And you’re not going to. You’re going to drop me off and go home and pretend like you know nothing.”

“Sydney!”

“Caroline. I mean it. This is bad enough as it is. Please don’t make it worse.”

“Fine.”

“Thank you.”

“But you’ll get him to sign my DVD still right?”

I pull the movie out of my purse so she can see I still have it.

“Thank you so much.”

“Just drive, please.”

***

It takes us longer than three minutes to get downtown, and by the time I find the Science Fiction section, Grant is already waiting. He’s casually leaning against a shelf, wearing a similar disguise to my own. Except his hat was probably $500, not free at a track meet.

“Sydney!” he stands up straight when he spots me. A smile flushes across his face. The little butterflies in my belly dance. I tell them to stop and follow Grant over to a table in the corner.

“So what do you want?” I lower myself into a chair and stare at him expectantly.

He takes a seat, and then presses his palms flat against the surface of the table. I can see that his nails, which were pristinely manicured two weeks ago, are now torn and shredded, like he’s been biting them.

He seems nervous and I kind of enjoy watching him twitch. At the same time I just want him to spit out whatever he has to say.

“Listen Sydney,” he sighs. “I’m really sorry about, well everything. That night in New York I just sort of panicked and kissing you seemed like the best idea at the time. I realize now it probably wasn’t. At least not for you.”

“Um yeah,” I nod. “That one picture almost destroyed my life.”

“Really?” he looks skeptical, as if he can’t possibly believe that kissing him would be detrimental to anyone’s existence.

“And things were just starting to get back to normal again. But now you’ve gone and screwed it all up! Why did you say we’re together?”

“I don’t know,” he twists his lips. “I didn’t mean to. I went out there intending to set the record straight, but then I just broke. But the time I realized how much I’d screwed up, the words had been said.”

“So what are you going to do now? How are you going to fix this?”

“I…I don’t know.”

“Well figure it out, because I want my life back. I want to go to school on Monday and not have the entire student body staring at me. I want to go home and not have to crawl through my neighbors hydrangeas to get inside the house because the paparazzi are camped out on my lawn.”

“I know. I know.”

“You’re a jackass.” I cross my arms against my chest and sink back into my chair.

“Agreed.”

“A lying, jackass. If you want your stupid girlfriend back so badly, just tell her. Don’t make me your bait.”

“I’m sorry what?” he frowns.

“Don’t look at me like that. You know exactly what I’m talking about. All of this,” I wave my arms around, “it’s to make Summer Stone jealous. I’m not stupid.”

“I’m not trying to make Summer jealous.”

“Yeah right. You kissed me the minute you saw her at the restaurant, and you announced we were together right after Letterman brought up the fact she was engaged. You’re totally in love with her.”

“I’m not in love with Summer. I was, but I’m not anymore. I admit that seeing her shocked me, and yes finding out she was engaged was…upsetting. But I didn’t bring you into this to make her want me back or anything. That’s the last thing I want.”

“Then why?”

Now he looks really uncomfortable and I can tell he doesn’t want to answer me, but I stare at him until he breaks.

“I was with Summer for over a year, okay. And I loved her and she loved me and blah, blah, blah. But when
Dead of Night
came out and I started getting more and more popular, it got hard for her. She didn’t like not being the most famous person in the relationship. It took away her sense of power or something. So we started fighting. Things got pretty volatile. By the end we were both drained. So we agreed to end things.

“The next thing you know her people are announcing that she dumped me and everyone thinks I’m this pathetic little puppy dog. I was upset, granted. It was hard. But it was just as hard for her. Yet I was the pathetic one. The one who couldn’t get over her. It’s difficult enough dealing with a breakup without the entire world pitying you.

“So I went out that night to talk to my publicist and for some reason he was late. And it was strange. People weren’t looking at me, they weren’t recognizing me. It felt good. And then I talked to you and you had no idea who I was. You had no pity or apologies for me. I liked it.

“But when we were leaving and I saw all those cameras, I knew it was only a matter of seconds before I got spotted, and you figured out the truth. Which I could have handled I guess. But then Summer had to show up and it was like this perfect storm. The photographers would see me, and then her with her new boyfriend and it would be ‘poor little Grant’ all over again. So I kissed you.”

I suck in my cheeks tap my fingers against the table. I want to hate him so badly, but I actually understand. I get it. Which really pisses me off.

“You could have left it at that. So why the debacle last night?”

“I guess I wasn’t ready to let go of you yet.”

“You never had me to begin with.”

“The idea of you I guess. What you represented.”

“Well you’re going to have to let go now.”

“Sydney listen. I know this is going to sound ridiculous and I can pretty much guess your answer. But just hear me out. When I kissed you I did it for all the wrong reasons. Except for one. Talking to you was exciting. You had no idea who I was and I liked that. I kept thinking to myself, what would it be like to be with someone like her? Someone who didn’t care about who I was.”

I have no idea what he’s saying, but I have a strong feeling that I’m not going to like where it’s going.

“So I was thinking. Will you go on a date with me?”

“A date?” I cough. “Are you kidding me? This entire conversation all I’ve wanted is to figure out how to get you out of my life! Not more into it!”

“I know.”

“Besides, you may have liked me because I didn’t figure out who you were, but that’s only because you lied to me.”

“I never lied to you.”

“Oh please! First you didn’t you tell me who you were. Then when I asked you what you did, you told me you were a student at NYU.”

“I told you my name was Grant. You didn’t ask me for a last name. And let’s face it, people who run around blathering about their own fame are kind of annoying, don’t you think? If I’d said right there and then, ‘I’m a famous movie star’...what would you have thought of me?”

“That doesn’t matter. You still lied about NYU.”

“I didn’t. I was just there a few weeks ago taking classes, studying for a role. Check the fan sites, the blogs. I was there from January until a couple days before we met.”

I fold my arms across my chest and glare at him. Loopholes. Stupid little loopholes.

“You’re just asking me out so you can keep your lie going. I’m not going sacrifice my mental well being so you can look good to the press. Sorry.”

“That’s not it.” He shakes his head. He stands up and walks around the table until he’s next to me. Then he looks down and locks my eyes with his. “Sydney despite your intense anger and what seems to be total hatred for me, I actually kind of like you. One date. Please?”

“Grant...” My mouth hangs open in surprise. Did Grant West just tell me he likes me? “I can’t.”

He laughs. “Any other girl in the world have said yes.”

“I’m not any other girl.”

“Exactly.”