Not in the Script (25 page)

Labor Day takes forever getting here, but once it comes around, I'm so nervous to spend the weekend in Phoenix that I drive about twenty miles an hour up the freeway.

When I reach his mom's house Saturday morning, Jake is already at his first tournament game. This past week, Mrs. Elliott and I spent a couple of hours on the phone discussing the general idea of my foundation, so now—as we work on her quilt—we iron out the details of providing financial and social support for the disabled.

Mrs. Elliott has also talked this over with her physical therapist, who specializes in cases like her own. He's offered to meet with us at his office Monday morning, when it's closed for the holiday, to give me a better sense of what questions to ask on an eligibility application. I already have a law firm doing the paperwork, and Jake is gathering a list of people to call when it's time for donations. McGregor has helped with names too, so everything is coming together perfectly.

And since Rachel loves all things Hollywood, I've asked her to
help out by searching the Internet for celebrity-sponsored charity events. I hope to get some good ideas for what could be successful moneymakers, while at the same time be entertaining enough to draw a crowd.

Jake's mom warns me in advance that her home health nurse is coming for about a half hour—and might ask a lot of questions if she sees me—so when she arrives, I hurry out to my car that's hidden in the garage and use the time to call Rachel. She's called four times since I've been here, and answers on the first ring with, “Why haven't you been picking up your phone? Where are you?”

In Jake's garage. And you?

“I'm working on foundation stuff,” I say. “Did you find any event ideas yet?”

“Any … what?” She pauses. “Oh yeah, events! I forgot again. I've been crazy busy.”

Seriously? I asked her three weeks ago. And at least five times since then.

“And I get
so
distracted every time I go online,” Rachel says. “My Twitter followers are so fickle, it's driving me nuts. I have to post something exciting every few hours or they drop like flies. I just tweeted about the new
Coyote Hills
website, though, and people are really excited about that. The Bod's cast spotlight is awesome! He loves Oreo shakes! Cute, huh? And basketball is his favorite sport. His favorite color is black—so hot. And he grew up right there in Arizona! No wonder he's got such a great tan.”

More and more, I don't want Rachel to meet the real Jake Elliott. She can keep The Bod, he's all hers. But
Jake
…

“What do you think about
my
spotlight?” I haven't seen it myself yet, because I hadn't heard the site was up. “We wrote them ourselves. Was I too silly?”

“Hold on, I'll read it.” Twenty seconds or so pass. She'll be entirely honest, like always. “What's up with your favorite foods being sushi and veal piccata? That sounds sort of—”

“
Huh
? I … I swear I wrote pizza and popcorn.”

“There's nothing about pizza. No popcorn.” Rachel says she's going to keep reading, and I'm pulling up the site too, but it doesn't look right on my phone and I can't find the spotlights. “Did someone hijack your profile, or what? It also says you want to learn how to play golf, but you hate golfing.”

Golf?
If Mrs. Elliott wouldn't have thought I was being murdered in her garage, I would have screamed my head off. “I've gotta go!” I tell Rachel and hang up before she can reply. I then call my control-freak
momager
who obviously tweaked a few things before she sent my “own words” to the network publicity office.

“Really, Mom?” I say the second she picks up. “Veal piccata? What's so wrong with pizza, huh? I sound like a priss!”

I had wanted to sound normal. I
am
normal.

“Calm down,” she snaps. “You love veal piccata. You order it every time it's on a menu.”

“Oh, I get it. Pizza isn't sophisticated enough for my public persona—unlike veal piccata or golf. Which is
your
favorite sport, not mine. And never mind that ninety percent of the fans who will be surfing the
Coyote Hills
website are a lot closer to my age than yours and won't even know what veal piccata is. You changed my answers, Mom. You changed me into
you
!”

The mudroom door opens, and Jake peeks into the garage.
Crap
. Had he heard me? He waves and squints through the dark—only the interior light of my car is on. I cover the phone, open the car door, and ask him, “Will you please bring out your laptop?”

I put the phone back to my ear when Mom is midsentence. “… didn't change everything. I kept
tennis
as your favorite sport. I only put golf for the question that asked what new skill you'd like to learn from a pro, because you had written—”

“Snake charming. Yeah, I know. It was supposed to be funny.”

“Well, it wasn't,” Mom says. “We're trying to change your image here, from being a young girl who flits from one train-wreck relationship to the next, to being a serious actress. It's time you start behaving like an adult.”

“Oh, all right!” I say. “If you want me to behave like most of the other girls my age, then I have a
ton
of crazy stuff I've gotta go try. See ya!”

I hang up. She calls right back, but I send her to voice mail.

Jake pokes his head into the garage again, and I wave him over. He sits in the passenger seat with his laptop. He's close enough for me to tell that he's changed his shirt, because I smell the scent of fresh fabric softener. It's all I can do to resist snuggling right into him.

“Did you just want the laptop, or do you want me too?” he asks. “My next game isn't for another hour.”

“Good. Stay,” I reply. “I think I want … well, what I
need
is to fire my mom. Or actually, just the manager part of my mom. But I don't know how. Or when. Or anything.”

And the tabloids use my love life as their personal ATM.

And my
best friend
keeps forgetting to do the one favor I've asked of her in years.

It seems like Jake is the only person in the world who treats me like a real flesh-and-blood girl—not just a TV character.

I slide my hand next to his and hook our pinkies. Just our pinkies.

No big deal. Right?

He stares down at our hands. “Oh … kay,” he finally says. “What happened?”

I would tell Jake to go to the
Coyote Hills
website—because I still want to see what else my mom changed—but then he would have to let go of my hand. So I just tell him about the fight instead. In less than a minute, we're holding hands for real, and the argument with my mom suddenly seems humorous.

“She's been trying forever to get me to like golf,” I say, “which is so stupid, because I suck! The last time we went to her country club, I hit more trees than grass.”

“Then you definitely don't need professional help. I mean, I've golfed my entire life, and I can rarely hit a tree. It's so much easier to hit all that grass.”

I try to smack him, but with our hands still connected, I'm a little off and hit the laptop instead. “Ow!”

Jake laughs and lifts my hand, but a split second before it reaches his lips, he stops. “Oh yeah,” he says, and lowers our hands back to his knee. “I shouldn't do that. I forget sometimes.”

“Me too.”
Did I say that out loud?

Jake looks back, his eyes wide open. “Really? You want me to kiss you?”

For hours and hours
. I've wanted him to kiss me for a few weeks now, no matter how hard I try to push the idea out of my head. We just … can't.

“Nice gulp,” he says, catching my reaction.

My cheeks are on fire. “Thanks,” I reply. “I've been gulping a lot lately. Because, you know, you keep looking at me like … like you are right now.”

“Like I want to kiss you,” he says. “Yeah, I'll admit that's happened a few times. And it's probably good to get it out in the open.”

I feel sort of tingly all over. I might even be hovering above the seat.

“I agree, but, um …” I suck in a bit more air. “If … well, if we do that
now
, for example, I'm afraid I might regret it. And then we'll both feel stupid. So we just … better not.”

“Kiss, you mean? Which for some reason is a bad idea?”

“Lots of reasons,” I say. “Such as, I'm not ready for another boyfriend.”

“And you don't want to date another guy you work with.”

Gosh, it's really hot in this car. “And my best friend likes you.”

“The one who's never met me?” Jake asks. “And thinks I'm made of paper?”

“Yep, that one. Then there's also the little detail that everyone thinks I'm dating Brett, not you—which I'm not. Dating either of you, I mean.”
Ignore the fact that I'm holding your hand and have a butterfly farm living inside me
. “But especially not Brett.”

Jake looks hesitant to reply, but finally speaks again and the tension breaks. “I can't help wondering what things might be like if you and I were the ones who were first spotted together, when we were at The Cage. Then the gossip would be all about us, and …” He laughs. “Well, I'm guessing we wouldn't need to hide in my mom's garage to have a conversation.”

While I think over the possibilities, I lean against Jake's shoulder … because I've wanted to for so long … and what's the harm in doing it for just a few seconds? Except that the mudroom door opens and Mrs. Elliott peers into the darkness. She clearly sees us, then hurries to close the door again. I sit straight up. “Um, wow … bad timing.”

Jake pulls me back against him. “Don't worry about my mom.”

“You've told her we're still just friends, right?”

He shakes his head. “She hates it when I lie.”

His green eyes look down, and I look up. “Jake …” is all I get out.

“Hey, I'll go along with all this other stuff,” he says, “but we should at least be honest with each other. You've gotta know this is going somewhere.”

“Of course I do.” But it's hard to trust my instincts—the feeling inside me that says our relationship wouldn't be the same type of ever-changing roller-coaster ride I've been on before: happy, super happy, not so happy, fight, more fights, lots of crying, done. Because with Jake … I don't want it to end. “But wherever we're going, I need to get there slowly,” I tell him. “Like, snail mode.”

“I get that. And I'm still cool with it, I promise.” Jake combs his free hand through my hair, and I fight to keep my eyes open. It's bliss. “Just remember that after we work through
your
long list of stuff, we'll still need to tackle all the reasons I don't want to date
you
.”

I pull back, my insides collapsing into a big hot mess. “Not that I'm all crushed and mortified, but what …
reasons
are you talking about?”

Jake shrugs. “They're actually pretty straightforward. One, you confuse me. Two, you frustrate me. And three …” He smiles and holds my hand just a little tighter. “I sometimes wish I'd never met you.”

I laugh. “Oh. Is that all?”

“Yep, that's it.”

My legs don't recover from feeling like jellyfish until a full ten minutes after Jake leaves for his next ballgame. The home health nurse is gone by then, but to delay a run-in with Mrs. Elliott as
long as I can—she might as well have just caught me playing with matches in her garage—I study the family photos along the hall. Most are of Jake and his sister, Amber, at various ages. Jake has always been unusually cute. His toothless grin as a kid reminds me of the mischievous smiles my seven-year-old brothers now have.

The photos leave one question still churning inside me: Where is Jake's dad? Whenever we've talked about our families, Jake has always avoided discussing him. Mrs. Elliott hasn't mentioned him either, but the most obvious topic we've avoided this morning is her son. And there's no dodging it now.

Mrs. Elliott looks up from her quilt when I enter the living room; she's probably been picking out my knots. Once we're finished, she plans to donate the quilt to the rehabilitation center where she stayed after her stroke. “I, um …”
Want to bury my head in the ground like an ostrich
. “I was hoping to clarify what you just saw.”

“I've been instructed to keep my mouth shut about you two.” She zips her lips.

I smile and relax a bit. “Jake says I shouldn't feel stupid, but I can't help it. Not until I explain a few things.”

Mrs. Elliott motions for me to sit next to her wheelchair. “Then get on with it, but please don't feel stupid. I know you're ‘just friends' … most of the time.”