Dollhouse (7 page)

Chapter Thirteen

Kyle

“I
didn’t know Kamille was hooking up with Milo Donovan,” Kyle said, scrolling through the latest issue of
Dish
magazine on her laptop. “God, that’s not fair. I wonder if she’d be into sharing?” Just looking at the image of physically perfect Milo made her feel seriously horny.

“Uh, can we please get back to the Civil War? Quiz tomorrow, remember?” Benjy reminded her. He peeked over her shoulder. “Besides, that picture’s Photoshopped.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

Benjy pointed to the photo of Kamille, who was dressed in some skanky-looking black dress and gazing up adoringly at Milo. “See the edges of her hair? That’s a bad pen-tooling job. And see how the two of them are lit differently? The magazine took two separate photos and made it look like Kamille and this dude were standing next to each other.”

“How do you know that?”

Benjy grinned. “I’m a genius, I know everything. That’s why I’m making the big bucks, being your tutor. Besides, I thought your sister was dating Chase what’s-his-name? The baseball player?”

“She’s your sister, too. I think Kamille’s been on like one date with him. Besides, she’s a total slore, she’s probably hooking up with both of them.”

“I’ll tell her you said that.”

“Yeah, go ahead.”

Bored, Kyle Googled “Kamille Romero,” “Milo Donovan,” and “Chase” (she couldn’t remember his last name). Seconds later, a number of items came up:

MILO’S GIRLFRIEND CHEATS ON HIM WITH BASEBALL PLAYER

MILO: SHE BROKE MY HEART!

SUPERSTAR CHASE GOODALL SMITTEN WITH SOON-TO-BE SUPERMODEL KAMILLE ROMERO

CHASE AND KAMILLE FIGHT ABOUT HIS OTHER GIRLFRIENDS!

MILO’S SECRET GAY PAST

CHASE’S BODYGUARD TELLS ALL!

KAMILLE’S SECRET LESBIAN PAST

KAMILLE PREGNANT WITH CHASE’S BABY!

Kyle read the headlines out loud to Benjy. “Are these magazines allowed to make this shit up? Isn’t that illegal or something?” she said incredulously.

“Yeah, and did you notice? They’re always quoting a so-called inside source, too, like it’s all true.”

“Hmm, I think I’ll start doing that. You know, writing papers for school and not researching any of it and saying it’s all based on ‘inside sources.’ ”

“Good one! Okay, so, back to the important stuff.”

“Huh?”

Benjy flipped through his notebook. “Can you tell me who Jeb Stuart was? Was he with the Confederacy or the Union?”

Kyle narrowed her eyes at him. Did he have to be such a buzz kill? Still, he did look kind of cute today in his untucked white button-down, left over from today’s school uniform, and distressed jeans. “Can’t we do something fun? Hey, you wanna go for a swim?” she said sweetly. She typed in the URL for the weather website, to see what the temperature was like outside.

“No. And you need to stop surfing. Give me that.” Benjy reached over, picked up her laptop, and snapped the lid shut.

“Hey, asshole! Give that back!”

“Not until we finish studying for the quiz.”

“
No!
Give it
back
!”

Benjy set the laptop on a bookshelf behind him, out of her reach. She lunged for it, and he blocked her. Furious, she punched him in the stomach, hard.

“
Ow!
What the
hell
?” Benjy yelled. He grabbed her arm and twisted it behind her back. “Fine, you want to play rough? We can play rough.”

Actually, that hurt. Kyle squirmed. “Let me go!”

“Not until you apologize for punching me.”

“No!”

She tried to free her arm, and they struggled. Benjy hooked his foot around her ankle, knocking her off balance, and she fell to the floor, pulling him down with her. They rolled around and around on the carpet, trying to gain the upper hand, neither one quite succeeding.

All of a sudden Kyle started laughing. Benjy started laughing, too. Then, in the next second, something changed. They stopped laughing, and they stared at each other, breathing hard. Kyle was lying on top of Benjy, and before she could stop herself, she was kissing him, and he was kissing her back. His mouth was hot and delicious, like butterscotch. She could feel his hand under her T-shirt, fumbling awkwardly in the general vicinity of her bra strap.

What in the hell are we doing?
Kyle thought wildly.
What if someone walks in? What if Benjy tries to go all the way?
She hadn’t made out with that many guys (or girls), even though she liked to pretend that she had, and she was still carrying her V-card around, even though she didn’t advertise that fact either. It was an image thing. Mostly, she preferred her solitude. Relationships, even casual hookups, could get so messy and complicated. She really just wanted people to leave her alone.

Except for right now. Making out with Benjy felt so good. Their bodies entangled, their tongues intertwined . . . she could do this all afternoon.

“We should stop,” Benjy said suddenly.

“You’re right, we should,” Kyle agreed.

They kept kissing.

Chapter Fourteen

Kat

“O
hmigod! We’re having Sunday Night Dinner with a famous baseball player!” Bree shrieked. “I have to put this on my Facebook status right this second!” She pulled out her phone and began typing furiously.

“Because we’ve never had any other famous baseball players in our house before? Thanks, honey,” Beau joked.

Chase grinned. “Yeah, the honor’s all mine, Mr. LeBlanc. I’ve always wanted to meet you, and now here I am, in your home, eating this fantastic—what did you call it?” he said, turning to Kat.

“ ‘Spapizza.’ Beau invented the recipe. It’s part spaghetti with meatballs, part pizza,” Kat explained.

“Yeah, it’s kinda different, isn’t it? And please call me Beau, you’re making me feel old.”

“You
are
old, Daddy,” Bree said without looking up from her phone. “I think you’re the oldest dad in my class! Well, except for Savannah’s dad, he’s like eighty.”

Everyone laughed. Kat glanced around the table, happy that people were enjoying themselves (well,
most
of the people, anyway—was something up with Kyle and Benjy?) and feeling warm and relaxed from the lovely Cabernet, courtesy of Chase, who seemed to know how to make the right gestures when “meeting the parents” for the first time.

Yet she was a little anxious, too. About Chase, actually. Kamille had been dating him for exactly two weeks, and she appeared—typical Kamille—to be madly in love, almost ready to walk down the aisle. She and Chase had been holding hands and stealing kisses and giggling at each other’s dumb jokes nonstop since arriving at the house. He was everything Kamille had said he was when she first told Kat about their relationship: handsome, charming, considerate. And he seemed pretty crazy about Kamille, too.

Still, Kat couldn’t ignore the magazine covers she’d seen in the grocery-store lines, ever since Chase joined the Dodgers and became their resident hottie. They showed him partying at clubs, juggling multiple celebrity girlfriends, and getting caught in alleged “cheating scandals.” Was that the real Chase? Or was that just the tabloids distorting the truth to sell copies? Sitting here, he seemed like a great guy, and so attentive to Kamille . . .

. . . who, on the other hand, didn’t have the best judgment when it came to boyfriends. Kamille was always falling in love with the wrong guy and getting her heart broken.

“Chase, let me borrow you for a sec. I want to show you some of my old trophies,” Beau said, standing up.

“Seriously? I’d love that, sir! I mean, Beau!” Chase said eagerly.

The two men got up and wandered off to Beau’s study. Beau had his arm around Chase’s shoulders and was talking animatedly about RBIs and such. Baseball soul mates. Kat studied the remaining faces around the table: Bree, Kass, Kyle, Benjy, and, of course, Kamille, who was staring after Chase like a lovesick teenager. Kass was unusually cheerful; she’d announced earlier that she had to dash after the lemon-cake course because she was seeing a movie with a friend later, saying the word
friend
with a lilt in her voice Kat had never heard before. Could she be going out on an actual
date
? Maybe with Parker Ashton-Gould or one of the other young men Kat had set her up with? It was a nice thought.

Kyle, on the other hand, had been in a weird funk all night—weirder than usual, that is, in that she hadn’t said a single bitchy, sarcastic thing to anyone since sitting down. In fact, she had been mysteriously silent, except to say “please” and “thank you” when asking for food to be passed. Kyle, saying “please” and “thank you”? Had she undergone a brain transplant when Kat wasn’t looking?

Benjy was his normal subdued self, except that he kept sneaking looks at Kyle across the table and then quickly looking away. What was going on between those two? Maybe they were having problems with their tutoring arrangement? Kat made a mental note to speak to Beau about it. They were overdue to check in with Benjy on Kyle’s progress, anyway.

After dinner—Kass had said her good-byes and rushed off, Kyle and Benjy had disappeared to their respective rooms, Bree had taken the dogs outside, and Beau and Chase were still holed up in Beau’s study having their male-bonding time—Kat found herself alone in the kitchen with Kamille, doing the dishes.

“Sooooo?”
Kamille said eagerly. “What do you think? Isn’t he perfect? He’s perfect, right?”

“He seems very nice,” Kat replied vaguely. “You guys seem, um, pretty serious.”

Kamille beamed and nodded. “We are! Sort of! I mean, we’ve only been out on a few dates. And we haven’t—that is, I mean—well, you know what I mean. Chase is a total gentleman. He hasn’t pressured me to . . . well . . . you
know.
Okay, TMI! But I really like him, Mommy! And I think he likes me, too! He says he wants me to meet his parents sometime. They live in Laguna, that’s where he grew up, and he’s superclose to them. They go to church as a family, just like we do!”

“Really?” Kat began loading dishes into the dishwasher, buying herself time so she could choose her words carefully. “Honey. I don’t mean to sound like an overprotective mom. But I
am
an overprotective mom, we all know that, and I don’t want to see you get hurt.”

“What do you mean, get hurt?”

“
Welllll . . .
Chase has kind of a reputation.”

“Mom!
Seriously?
Have you been reading those stupid tabloid magazines?” Kamille cried out. “Those stories are completely made up, you know that, right? Like, did you know they’re saying Milo Donovan and I are dating? Milo Donovan, yeah, he’s that Bill Boxer model. He and I walked into a party together, it was completely random, and because of that, the magazines are calling us a couple. Isn’t that insane? Just like those stories about Chase are insane!”

“So . . . you’ve read them?” Kat asked her.

Kamille shrugged. “Some of them. They’re total lies! Chase is such a forgiving person, he’s not even mad at those reporters. He says they have to make a living, too. Anyway, besides, he has a publicist now who handles them. He just hired this woman, Zoe something, she’s supposed to be amazing. She’s going to start dealing with all those reporters so Chase doesn’t have to.”

“Uh-huh.”

Kamille pouted. “Mommy, please be
happy
for me. Chase is the first perfect guy I’ve met in . . . well, never. I really like him, and I really want to keep seeing him. So can you just be sweet and supportive and not all worried-mom-like?”

Kat laughed and hugged her. “Okay, doll. I won’t be all worried-mom-like.”

L
ater, after Chase and Kamille had left, and the other kids and Coco and Chanel had gone to sleep, Kat turned to Beau as they were brushing their teeth in the his-and-hers, side-by-side bathroom sinks. “So what do you think?” she asked him, her mouth full of toothpaste.

“Of what, darlin’?”

“Chase. What do you think of Chase?”

“Oh! Well! I liked him. I liked him very much. And he’s a mighty fine pitcher, too. Really glad he and Kamille are together.” Beau grinned. “Was it just me, or do they seem like they’re ready to start picking out baby names? They seemed awfully cozy.”

“Don’t
say
that!”

“Why not? Not ready to be a grandma yet? You’d be the sexiest grandma in the state of California, I tell you that,” Beau teased her.

Kat spit out her toothpaste. “No, I’m not ready to be a grandma! And Kamille’s not ready to be a mom! Or a wife! She’s only twenty years old. Besides, I’m not so sure about Chase. I think he’s a player, not a settling-down type.”

“Yeah, he’s a player. He’s a
baseball
player. You know, not every good-looking guy is a—what’s that term the kids use?—
man-whore.
Look at me!” Beau wiggled his eyebrows.

“Ha-ha, very funny.”

“I’m completely devoted to you. And from the looks of it, Chase seems pretty devoted to our Kamille.”

Kat didn’t reply. She hoped, sincerely hoped, that Beau was right. But she couldn’t shake the nagging feeling that Chase’s tabloid image might not be so far from reality.

Or was she just being too “worried-mom-like”?

Chapter Fifteen

Kamille

“S
o . . . welcome to my place,” Chase said as he ushered Kamille through the front door. “Let me take your coat.”

Kamille paused in the terra-cotta-tiled foyer and shrugged off her faux-mink jacket for Chase. She glanced around, excited to finally see his house, which was nestled on a secluded lot in exclusive Holmby Hills.

He had suggested that they stop by for a nightcap after the Sunday Night Dinner, and even though she was tired, she’d said yes. She hadn’t wanted the evening to end just yet. The dinner had gone so well; everyone seemed to love Chase . . .

. . . except for her mom, who could be Ms. Judgmental when it came to Kamille’s boyfriends. Of course, Chase wasn’t just any boyfriend, and Kat would come around. Eventually. In the meantime, Kamille wasn’t going to let that stressful little mother-daughter talk ruin her good mood.

At least I
have
a boyfriend,
Kamille thought smugly. Although Kass had said something about meeting up with some guy named Eduardo later tonight? So maybe there was hope for her, after all.

“What do you think? It’s not too much of a grungy bachelor pad, is it?” Chase joked as they headed into the living room.

“Ohmigosh, no! It’s incredible!” Kamille gushed. She glanced around the room, at the blue and yellow walls and the mix of wicker and hand-painted Mexican furniture. “Did you decorate it yourself? It’s so pretty! Well, not ‘pretty,’ but whatever the guy version of ‘pretty’ is. You know what I mean, right?”

“Yeah, I know what you mean. And no, I hired a decorator to do it. I told her I wanted it to look kind of like my parents’ house, the house I grew up in. That explains why it’s kind of beachy looking. I wanted a lot of family photos on the walls, too. See, that’s me when I was five.” Chase pointed to a framed picture on top of a white baby-grand piano.

Kamille walked over to take a closer look. Chase at five was an adorable boy with a headful of floppy blond curls. In the picture, he was holding up a toy sailboat and grinning proudly.

“You’re so cute!” Kamille told him.

“Yeah, actually, I was kind of a handful. My mom’ll tell you. And over there on the wall . . . that’s her and my dad. The two guys with surfboards, those’re my brothers, Zach and Justin. Zach’s at UCLA—he’s a business major—and Justin’s a senior in high school. And the girl on the mountain bike, that’s my sister, Amanda. She and Justin are twins.”

“You have a big family!”

“Yeah, just like you.” He smiled and added, “That’s what I want, too, someday. A lot of kids.”

“Yeah, me, too.”

For a moment Kamille imagined her and Chase getting married and starting their own family. The thought made her blush furiously, and she turned away, hoping Chase didn’t notice. She busied herself scrutinizing the rest of his family photos.

Chase came up behind her. He wrapped his arms around her waist and kissed the top of her head. The kiss felt so tender that Kamille knew, in that instant, that Chase had the same fantasy, too, of marriage and kids. With her. The thought made her weak in the knees.

“Kamille.” Chase turned her around and stared into her eyes. “I know this is all moving kinda fast, but . . . do you believe in love at first sight?”

“Do I . . .”

Kamille hesitated. How could she explain this to him? Of course she believed in love at first sight. She was the queen (or rather, princess) of love at first sight. But with all her other boyfriends, she only
thought
she was in love. She knew now that those were just dumb crushes (at best) or dysfunctional dramas (at worst), like the times she would fall for guys who treated her like dirt, and then continue falling deeper the worse they treated her. How messed up was that?

But Chase was different.
He
was the one.
This
was what love, and love at first sight, were supposed to feel like. Not pain and rejection and emptiness, but warmth and safety and passion all wrapped up in one amazing package.

Kamille met his gaze, feeling as if her heart were about to burst out of her chest. She opened her mouth to speak, to tell him all this, to tell him she loved him. But before she could say a word, he put his finger on her lips and whispered, “I want you to come with me.”

“Where?”

Without speaking, Chase took her hand and led her to his bedroom. He paused by the terrace door—the view of the city twinkling in the distance was stunning, especially with the pale moon—and wrapped her in his arms. He kissed her, at first gently, and then more urgently. She returned the kiss with the same urgency, knowing at this moment that she was ready to give herself to him completely.

She stepped back and slipped out of her dress, relishing the way his eyes seemed to devour her body. But standing there in her white lace bra and panties and nothing else, she suddenly felt shy. She crossed her arms over her chest.

“Don’t do that. I have to look at you. Oh my God, you are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen,” Chase murmured huskily.

“I am?”

“I don’t think you realize the power you have over men. Over me.”

“I don’t want to have power over other men. Just you.”

“Come here.”

They fell to the bed, kissing, caressing each other, peeling away each other’s clothes.

A
fterward, Kamille lay in bed as Chase took a shower in the adjoining bathroom. Moonlight fell across the room, casting a dreamy silvery glow. She drew the luxurious Egyptian sheets up to her neck and sighed happily. Every cell in her body seemed to hum and vibrate with relaxation, pleasure, bliss.

Now she understood why sex was such a big deal. Her lovers before Chase had obviously been total amateurs. With Chase, she had reached heights she had never dreamed possible. She’d never had an orgasm with a guy, but with Chase . . . well, she had pretty much lost count after the fourth or fifth one.

She closed her eyes and sank down on the impossibly soft pillow. She was exhausted after their lovemaking marathon, and yet, incredibly, she wanted him again. Had she turned into a complete sex maniac? She giggled and buried herself more deeply under the sheets, breathing in the smell of his skin and cologne and their mingled sweat. She felt dizzy with lust and love and a million emotions she had never truly experienced before.

A phone began ringing, interrupting her postcoital coma. She poked her head out. It was Chase’s cell on the nightstand. It stopped after six rings, then started up again.

Kamille frowned, annoyed. Who was so eager to reach him, and at this late hour? The alarm clock said 12:24. Curious, she propped herself up on her elbows and glanced at the caller-ID screen.

It flashed: TIFFANI CALLING.

It was like a sucker punch to the stomach. Who in the hell was Tiffani, and why was she calling Chase after midnight? Was she an ex-girlfriend?

For an irrational split second, Kamille contemplated answering the phone. But that would be insane. If Chase walked in on her doing something like that, he might think twice about their relationship. The truth was, she didn’t handle jealousy too well. Last year, she had actually found a way to hack into a boyfriend’s voice mail because he kept getting calls from a particular number. The person turned out to be his mother. It was not a side of her she wanted to share with Chase—not yet, anyway. Maybe when they’d been together, and she felt more secure with him.

Still, who was this bitch Tiffani?

“Is that your phone? Or mine?”

Kamille jerked her head up and saw Chase standing in the doorway of his bathroom, wearing nothing but a white towel. His hair was damp, and his tanned, rock-hard muscles glistened with moisture. She would have been totally turned on at the sight of him, except that she was distracted by the still-ringing phone. And by the realization that Chase may have seen her checking out the screen, trying to figure out the caller’s identity.

“I think it’s yours?” Kamille replied casually. “Mine’s in my purse.”

Chase sauntered over and peered at the screen. His face darkened with annoyance.

“Chase? What is it?”

“It’s this girl Tiffani, she’s a friend of mine. She’s married to one of the guys on the team. I think they’re having problems, and . . . uh . . . she calls me a lot to check up on him, ask me if he’s with me and stuff. I don’t want to get involved, if you know what I mean?”

Relief coursed through Kamille. Why had she been so paranoid? “I totally know what you mean,” she said, smiling sympathetically.

“Yeah, that relationship’s a time bomb. She’s the most jealous person I’ve ever met. He’s totally not cheating on her, as far as I know, but if he did, I almost wouldn’t blame him. She’s constantly nagging him about where he’s going and where he’s been. She even stalks him through his Twitter page. It’s like she wants to keep him in a cage.”

“Wow, that sounds awful!” Of course, Kamille didn’t mention that Twitter-stalking was one of her own tried-and-true strategies.

“It is. But I don’t want to talk about them anymore.”

Chase turned off his cell and tossed it on the floor. He slid into bed, letting his towel fall away, his eyes blazing with desire as he took in the sight of Kamille’s naked body. She gasped when she saw that he was ready to make love to her, again. But why was she so surprised? She wanted him, too. So much.

They didn’t go to sleep until the sun came up.